IDEALISM  AND  THE 
MODERN  AGE 


IDEALISM  AND  THE 
MODERN  AGE 


BY 
GEORGE  PLIMPTON  ADAMS,  PH.D. 

ASSOCIATE   PROFESSOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY 
UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


NEW  HAVEN 
YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON  •  HUMPHREY  MILFORD  •  OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
MDCCCCXIX 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


TO  M.  W.  A. 


M84719 


PREFACE 

THIS  essay  is  intended  to  offer,  in  substance,  an  analysis 
of  an  idea  which  lies  at  the  center  of  much  modern 
thought  and  life.  In  the  main,  it  is  only  the  theoretical 
aspects  of  this  modern  idea  which  are  here  examined. 
The  essay  began  to  take  definite  shape  before  August, 
1914.  During  recent  months  the  conviction  has  increasingly  been 
borne  in  upon  the  author's  mind  that  it  is  this  same  idea  on  its 
practical  side,  in  industry  and  in  politics,  which  lies  behind  the 
Great  War,  now  provisionally  ended.  It  is  this  same  idea  which 
also  lies  behind  innumerable  sinister  forces  which  are  bending  every 
effort  to  insure  that  the  world  shall  return  as  speedily  as  possible 
to  the  status  quo  ante.  "Examining  the  bonds  of  sympathy  and 
interest  which  unite  the  reactionary  forces,  we  find  them  centered 
in  the  arbitrary  'will  to  power.'  "  Thus  wrote  Mr.  John  A.  Hobson 
but  a  few  months  ago. 

It  is  impossible  to  be  profoundly  dissatisfied  with  much  of  the 
main  current  of  modern  philosophy  and  not,  at  the  same  time,  be 
radically  critical  of  the  eventuation  of  the  modern  forces  in  the 
established  economic  and  social  fabric.  Idealism  in  philosophy 
should  connote  a  wide  understanding  of  and  a  generous  sympathy 
for  the  forces — primarily  those  of  common  life  and  labor — which 
are  rapidly  gathering  strength  to  challenge  the  "arbitrary  will  to 
power"  lying  at  the  root  of  so  much  within  the  established  order. 
That  challenge  calls  for  an  articulate  philosophy.  Many  who 
vigorously  repudiate  the  entire  apparatus  of  idealism  have  made 
and  are  making  solid  contributions  to  the  formation  of  such  a 
philosophy.  One  of  them — a  leader  since  the  death  of  William 
James — it  has  been  the  author's  privilege  to  know  for  the  first  time 
during  the  last  few  months.  Some  of  his  views  are  criticized  in  the 
pages  which  follow,  and  there  is,  quite  certainly,  nothing  here  which 

[  vii  1 


PREFACE 

would  meet  with  his  approval,  should  he  chance  to  turn  its  leaves. 
Yet,  the  author  likes  to  think  it  not  wholly  impossible  to  unite  in 
a  common  undertaking  all  who  see  the  imperative  need  for  building 
up  a  future  world  order  wherein  genuine  democracy  shall  be  more 
than  a  name. 

I  have  to  thank  the  editors  of  the  Harvard  Theological  Review  for 
their  permission  to  use,  in  the  third  chapter,  an  article  on  "Mystery 
God  and  Olympian  God,"  published  in  April,  1916. 

GEORGE  PLIMPTON  ADAMS. 
Berkeley, 
February  n,  1919. 


[  viii  ] 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I:  The  Modern  Problem i 

II:  Democracy  and  the  Modern  Economic  Order  .         .         .  13 

III:  The  Religious  Tradition 39 

IV:  Platonism  and  Christianity    ......  65, 

V:  The  Isolation  of  Mind  and  of  Self 89 

VI:  The  Mind's  Participation  in  Reality      .         .         .         .  115 

VII:  Idealism  and  the  Autonomy  of  Values  .         .         .         .  141 

VIII:  Knowledge  and  Behavior,  Mind  and  Body      .         .         .  169 

IX:  The  Self  and  the  Community       .         .         .         .         T  197 

X:  The  Interpretation  of  Religion       .         .         .         .         .  221 


CHAPTER   I  ,.;,;.; 

THE  MODERN  PROBLEM 

f      •      fHE  world  of  modern,  west  European  civilization  has 
been  fashioned  by  certain  massive  energies  of  life  and 

nf  thought  which,  in  spite  of  their  complexity  and  diver- 
ty,  possess  a  considerable  degree  of  coherence.  The 
)rmative  forces  of  any  age  reveal  themselves  not 
only  in  the  more  or  less  formal  and  explicit  utterances  of  philoso- 
phers and  moralists,  but  in  social  and  economic  structures,  in  the 
settled  habits  of  thought  and  the  latent  assumptions  which  underlie 
men's  judgments,  beliefs  and  ideals.  The  totality  of  these  structures, 
constituting  the  life  of  an  age,  may  be  called  the  idea  system  of  that 
age.  Every  political,  economic,  and  social  structure  amidst  which 
men  live,  as  a  system  of  human  deeds  and  relationships,  is  such  an 
idea  system.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  necessarily  originates  as  the 
deliberate  projection  of  some  conscious  idea.  Rather  does  the  oppo- 
site appear,  normally,  to  be  the  case.  The  conscious  philosophies 
and  ideals  of  men  seem  most  often  to  be  the  effect  of  historical 
facts  which  are  already  accomplished.  But  I  do  mean  that  when  we 
seek  to  study  a  social  structure  as  something  which  is  significant 
in  human  life  and  human  history,  we  are  bound  to  view  it  from  the 
side  of  the  ideas  and  ideals  which  live  within  it.  Every  such  social 
structure  and  settled  institution  is  the  outward  and  visible  form 
of  certain  human  attitudes,  habits  of  thought,  interests,  in  short,  of 
a  certain  consolidated  idea  system.  Thus,  feudalism  is,  in  the  first 
instance,  a  political  and  economic  organization  of  society,  defining 
a  certain  scheme  of  land  tenure,  of  mutual  obligations,  and  of  the 
distribution  of  wealth.  But  feudalism  is  also  something  which  has 
to  do  with  the  conscious  attitude  of  man  toward  his  world,  with  the 
underlying  premises  of  all  his  beliefs  and  value  judgments.  It  is 
something  spiritual  as  well  as  economic  and  political.  It  is  both  an 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

idea  system  and  a  structure  of  society.  The  same  may  be  said  about 
such  things  as  imperialism,  capitalism,  and  machine  industry, 
nationalism,  syndicalism,  etc.  It  is  because  of  this  intimate  and  un- 
Jdeniable  -c^ntfniiiiy  between  idea  system  and  social  forces  and 
processes  that  Mstpry  may  well  be  called  "the  biography  of  ideals."1 
^c\$fe{ajre ijfarml^tr  wjth  the  task  which  physiological  psychology  has 
set  itself  and  has  carried  through,  in  certain  regions  at  least,  with  a 
considerable  measure  of  success.  States  of  consciousness  are  corre- 
lated with  bodily  and  organic  processes.  Physiological  psychology 
is  the  study  of  these  correlations.  But  states  of  consciousness  and 
idea  systems  are  correlated  not  only  with  physiological  processes 
but  also  with  social  processes  and  structures.  To  study  the  nature 
and  scope  of  such  correlations  would  appear  to  be  the  task  of  social 
psychology,  an  inquiry  still  in  its  infancy.  Physiological  psychology, 
as  is  well  known,  has  been  most  successful  in  the  study  of  sensation 
and  perception  and  the  more  elementary  feelings  and  emotions. 
It  has,  on  the  whole,  comparatively  little  to  say  about  the  higher 
and  more  complex  mental  processes,  about  judgments,  sentiments, 
and  those  pervasive  attitudes  and  habits  of  mind  which  determine 
our  beliefs  and  loyalties.  May  it  not  be  that,  in  order  to  understand 
these  regions  of  the  life  of  the  mind,  we  need  a  social  psychology 
rather  than  a  physiological  psychology?  There  are  many  hopeful 
signs  of  the  solid  beginnings  of  such  an  undertaking.  In  any  case 
we  know  that  our  thinking  does  not  occur  in  the  void,  we  know  that 
there  are  subtle  filaments  which  link  together  social  institutions  and 
conscious  attitudes  into  one  single  life  structure. 

If  this  is  at  all  true,  then  we  may  expect  to  find  that  most  or  even 
all  of  the  formative  forces  which  make  an  age  to  be  what  it  is  may 
be  interpreted  as  the  expressions  of  a  single  idea  system.  The  "unity 
of  consciousness"  is  not  merely  an  abstract  principle  which  has  given 
to  philosophers  and  psychologists  an  opportunity  for  subtlety  and 
dialectic.  It  is  an  organizing  principle,  a  spiritual  attitude  which 
fashions  not  only  an  individual  mind,  but  the  life  of  a  community 
and  of  an  age  as  well.  To  understand  an  age  is  to  understand  that 
idea  system,  that  organizing  ideal  which  lies  behind  the  mind  and 
the  deeds  of  that  age  and  community. 

iDelisle  Burns:  "Political  Ideals,"  p.  27. 

[    2    ] 


THE  MODERN  PROBLEM 

Now,  I  am  persuaded  that  amidst  all  the  manifold  traditions 
which  lie  embedded  within  our  age,  there  is,  through  vast  reaches 
of  our  life  and  our  thought,  a  single  idea  system  which  is  at  work. 
And  I  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that,  in  a  profoundly  true  sense, 
"the  world  war  has  revealed  the  meaning  of  our  social  system,"2  and 
that  the  hope  for  the  future  lies,  in  the  first  place,  in  understanding 
the  path  along  which  we  have  been  travelling.  That  many  of  the 
fundamental  categories  of  our  thinking  and  of  the  basic  concepts 
to  which  the  modern  age  has  become  habituated  need  to  be  over- 
hauled and  reconstructed,  is  the  unescapable  lesson  of  the  present 
world  situation,  which  he  who  runs  may  read.  This  essay  is  an 
attempt  to  understand  something  of  that  idea  system  in  the  midst  of 
which  the  present  age  has  been  living  its  life.  There  is,  within  the 
modern  world,  something  distinctive  and  something  new.  It  may  be 
understood  only  when  we  contrast  it  with  those  idea  systems  which 
lie  behind  us.  To  those  older  structures  either  of  thought  or  of  social 
life  we  cannot  return  even  if  we  would.  We  must  go  on  into  the 
future.  What  that  future  shall  be  depends  in  part  upon  how  we 
estimate  and  interpret  the  nature  of  those  energies  which  have  been 
bearing  us  along  throughout  the  modern  age. 

We  may  profitably  dwell  for  a  moment  upon  this  continuity 
between  philosophy  and  life — for  it  is  just  this  which  we  have  in 
mind.  Such  continuity  of  life  and  philosophy  has  been  accepted  as 
a  matter  of  course  by  those  who  have  contributed  most  to  our  human 
stock  of  significant  ideas.  For  them,  to  live  has  been  to  think  and 
to  know,  and  to  know  has  been  to  envisage  the  meaning  of  their 
life  and  their  age.  Let  us  say,  if  we  will,  that  the  instruments  and 
the  habits  of  our  thinking  acquire  all  too  easily  an  inertia  of  their 
own.  They  may  become  severed  from  the  concrete  world  of  actual 
life.  But  thus  severed,  they  dry  up  and  they  eventually  die.  This 
essential  continuity  between  life  and  thought — when  thought  is 
sincere  and  profound — has  certain  implications,  two  of  which  are 
worth  mentioning  in  this  place.  It  means  that  the  temper  of  phi- 
losophy, like  that  of  life  itself,  must  be  empirical,  in  the  deeper 
meaning  of  that  term.  It  is  often  asserted  and  more  often  implied 

2  Chas.  Trevelyan,  in  a  communication  to  the  London  Nation,  February  2,  1918. 

[3] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

that  the  process  of  thinking  is  one  that  is  essentially  different  from 
every  process  of  observing  and  obtaining  insight  through  first-hand 
contact  with  actual  facts.  This  latter  is  empirical,  whereas  reflection 
is  somehow  removed  from  all  facts  and  is  a  mere  matter  of  spinning 
things  out  of  one's  head.  That  is  what  philosophy  is  often  thought 
to  be,  whereas  science  looks  abroad  upon  a  world  of  objective  facts. 
But  just  to  the  extent  to  which  our  thinking  is  relevant  to  the  pro- 
cess of  living,  is  this  contrast  inaccurate  and  superficial.  Thinking 
need  not  be  capricious  and  uncontrolled  by  objective  data.  Indeed 
we  may  say,  I  believe,  that  all  significant  thinking  is  really  a  kind 
of  insight,  and  its  method  is  broadly  empirical.  All  thinking  is  the 
reporting  of  some  situation  which  the  thinker  observes  to  be  what- 
ever it  is;  it  is  an  exploration  of  some  realm  which  is  as  little  created 
by  the  capricious  fancy  of  the  thinker  as  the  configurations  of  the 
earth's  surface  are  created  by  the  explorer.  Thinking  is  discovery, 
exploration,  insight  into  the  constitution  of  some  realm  which  pos- 
sesses being.  What  the  nature  of  such  a  realm  may  be,  and  how  it 
differs  from  the  space  world  of  the  geographical  explorer,  need  not 
here  concern  us.  A  geometrical  or  algebraic  proof  which  one  "thinks 
out"  is  a  report  of  an  objective  situation,  an  objective  and  definite 
set  of  entities  and  relationships.  It  is  at  least  this,  whatever  besides 
this  it  may  be.  If  mathematical  thinking  is  of  this  nature,  no  less  so  is 
the  thinking  of  the  philosopher.  He,  too,  seeks  to  report  and  to  inter- 
pret an  objective  situation.  To  be  sure  his  data,  unlike  those  with 
which  mathematical  thinking  deals,  are  not  ordinarily  as  precise; 
they  are  not  quantitative;  not  to  so  great  an  extent  arranged  in 
orders  and  series  so  that  they  may  be  expressed  in  compact  formulae. 
The  philosopher's  data  are  more  elusive  and  more  pervasive; 
spread  out  thinly  in  the  various  regions  of  experience,  more 
common  and  more  elemental.  In  philosophy  the  area  of  " facts" 
over  which  various  men  will  range  in  order  to  gather  their  data,  will 
not  always  coincide,  and  men  will  not  always  agree  as  to  what  data 
are  most  worth  while  collecting.  A  region  which  to  one  philosopher 
seems  lit  up  with  significance  will  appear  dark  or  trivial  to  another. 
Science,  then,  differs  from  philosophy  not  as  observation  differs 
from  spinning  things  out  of  one's  head,  but  in  the  sort  of  facts, 
i.e.,  objective  situations  which  each  is  interested  in  observing  and 

[  4  ] 


THE  MODERN  PROBLEM 

in  reporting.  Of  course,  neither  science  nor  philosophy  consists 
merely  in  reporting  facts,  as  we  ordinarily  understand  that  expres- 
sion. Besides  observation,  there  is  explanation  and  interpretation. 
But  the  essential  thing  to  observe  is  that  the  process  of  interpre- 
tation itself  is  a  kind  of  yielding  of  the  mind  to  an  objective  situa- 
tion; it  is  a  species  of  insight,  differing  to  be  sure  from  the 
observation  of  this  or  the  other  particular  fact,  but  not  differing 
from  it  as  "mere  speculation''  differs  from  "the  reporting  of  facts 
as  they  are." 

The  continuity  between  life  and  thought  means  something  further. 
We  find  it  easy  to  think  of  philosophies  as  necessarily  finished 
structures  and  closed  systems,  and  we  are  easily  led  to  contrast 
such  finished  systems  with  the  forward-looking  and  open  incom- 
pleteness which  is  characteristic  of  life.  Many  writers,  feeling  them- 
selves to  stand  in  the  midst  of  vigorous  currents  of  life  carrying  them 
on  into  an  unknown  future,  into  realms  not  as  yet  charted  on  any 
philosopher's  chart,  bid  us  distrust  comprehensive  throught  struc- 
tures because  of  their  supposed  fixity  and  finality  in  contrast  with 
the  unfinished  flexibility  of  whatever  possesses  life.  But  I  think 
that  this  is  due,  not  to  any  inherent  defect  in  thought  structures 
as  such,  but  rather  to  a  certain  distortion  in  our  perspective.  We 
look  back  and  call  the  philosophies  of  which  we  read  in  the  his- 
tories of  philosophy,  systems.  We  approach  them  from  without; 
it  is  as  if  only  their  bony,  skeletal  structures  were  accessible  to  us 
through  the  medium  of  text  books  and  lectures.  The  warm  blood 
and  the  softer  tissues  which  gave  these  structures  life  in  the  minds 
of  their  original  thinkers  are  less  permanent  and  all  too  easily 
escape  us.  To  reconstruct  them  in  thought  requires  more  than  an 
apprehension  of  inert  dogmas  and  static  systems.  It  requires  that 
we  view  such  thought  structures  not  so  much  as  systems,  implying 
that  they  are  thereby  finished  and  dead,  but  rather  as  living,  organ- 
izing concepts,  both  expressions  of  and  guiding  the  central  practical 
attitudes  and  interests  of  life.  Such  indeed  they  were.  And  such  must 
be  our  philosophy  if  it  shall  serve  us,  as  the  older  philosophies  have 
served  earlier  generations.  It  will  perhaps  help  us  if  we  set  out, 
then,  not  to  formulate  or  to  construct  any  "system"  of  metaphysics, 
but  simply  to  gather  in  such  significant,  organizing  concepts — 

[  5  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

whether  they  be  few  or  many,  old  or  new, — as  may  best  express  the 
nature  of  our  world  and  the  needs  of  our  life.  Such  an  "organizing 
concept"  is  a  significant  idea,  which  shall  mediate  between  our  life 
and  our  environment.  It  shall  be  both  true  and  pragmatic.  It  shall 
be  flexible  and  living,  as  thinking  and  philosophy  ever  have  been, 
and  it  shall  utter  the  permanent  and  substantial  interests  of  our  life 
and  our  experience.  It  is  not  possible  to  say  in  advance  what  are 
the  limits  of  such  an  undertaking.  No  doubt,  the  more  we  search 
and  reflect,  the  better  fashioned  and  the  more  comprehensive  will 
our  organizing  concepts  be,  nor  is  this  anything  to  be  afraid  of. 
But  even  a  few,  or  only  a  single  idea,  and  one  which  makes  no  claim 
to  completeness  or  to  the  finished  form  of  any  system,  may  be  a 
precious  possession  of  our  minds,  giving  men  something  to  live  by, 
a  token  of  the  reasonableness  of  our  life  and  the  vitality  of  our 
philosophy. 

We  return  to  the  modern  age.  I  propose  to  stress  one  single  but 
vastly  comprehensive  idea  system  within  the  modern  world  and  to 
inquire  into  its  foundations  and  its  consequences.  To  attempt  to 
bring  within  the  reach  of  a  single  attitude  and  thought  structure, 
however  comprehensive,  even  a  few  of  the  varied  currents  within 
a  complex  period  is,  of  course,  to  invite  abstractness  and  content- 
ment with  the  obvious  and  the  superficial.  Yet,  to  understand  any- 
thing which  is  varied  and  vital  is  always  to  run  something  of  this 
risk.  The  worth  of  the  enterprise  is  to  be  measured  simply  by  our 
success  in  actually  seeing  what  the  continuities  and  analogies  are 
between  the  various  social  structures,  human  attitudes,  and  reflec- 
tive theories  which  radiate  outward  from  one  idea  system  as  from  a 
center. 

It  will  serve  to  start  us  upon  our  way  as  well  as  to  provide  us 
with  a  rough  sketch  of  our  journey,  if  we  state  here  briefly  the  prob- 
lem which  is  to  occupy  us.  This  will  be,  needless  to  say,  a  much  over- 
simplified and  a  quite  abstract  statement.  Let  one,  then,  survey  in 
a  single  perspective  most  of  the  outstanding  things  which  come  to 
mind  when  we  think  of  the  distinctive  traits  of  modern,  west 
European  civilization.  There  was  the  Renaissance,  with  its  dis- 
covery of  nature  and  of  the  individual  and  with  its  enormous  re- 

[  6  ] 


THE  MODERN  PROBLEM 

lease  of  desires  and  of  interests  which  seemingly  found  little  outlet 
in  that  world  which  witnessed  the  formation  and  the  fixation  of 
the  Christian  idea  system.  There  was — and  is — nationalism,  which 
is  simply  the  individualism  of  a  continent,  and  which  signifies  the 
consciousness  of  definite  interests — economic,  political,  and  honor- 
ific— which  must  be  maintained,  and  whose  protection  and  expansion 
must  be  provided  for.  This  individualism  and  this  nationalism,  this 
maintenance  and  development  of  interests,  covers  very  much  in 
the  modern  era.  "In  fact,  the  whole  political  history  of  the  last  four 
centuries,"  remarks  a  recent  historian,  "is  in  essence  a  series  of 
compromises  between  the  conflicting  results  of  the  modern  exaltation 
of  the  state,  and  the  modern  exaltation  of  the  individual."3  There 
was,  too,  the  commercial  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  "starting  Europe  on  her  career  of  world  conquest,"4  and 
leading  up  to  the  industrial  revolution  of  the  eighteenth  century  with 
all  the  characteristic  features  of  capitalism  following  in  its  train. 
There  was  the  French  Revolution,  the  first  mighty  upheaval  motived 
by  the  conscious  conviction  that  the  only  social  order  fit  for  man 
to  live  in  is  one  which  he  himself  has  made  and  can  control, — and 
which  he  can  also  unmake  if  he  so  desires.  This  conviction  is  but 
democracy,  come  to  a  full  consciousness  of  its  meaning  and  its 
power.  This  conviction,  to  some  degree,  is  never  absent  from  any 
of  the  characteristic  achievements  and  structures  of  the  modern 
age.  And  then  there  is  science,  born  again  with  the  Renaissance, 
and  breathing  withal  a  somewhat  different  spirit  from  that  which 
inspired  it  during  its  brief  career  in  Greece  two  thousand  years 
earlier.  Science,  in  the  modern  age,  becomes  the  partner  of  democ- 
racy; it  becomes  the  instrument  of  knowledge  through  which  man 
wins  such  control  as  he  may  over  the  forces  of  his  life  and  his 
world.  Now  these  mighty  energies  which  have  made  our  present 
world,  varied  as  they  are,  share  in  a  common  trait,  and  issue  from 
a  common  motive  and  idea  system.  What  that  is  will  best  come  to 
view  if  we  set  it  over  against  the  outstanding  idea  systems  of  the 
ancient  and  the  medieval  worlds.  It  is  easy  no  doubt  to  exaggerate 
the  contrast  between  modern  and  medieval.  No  less  an  authority 

3  Hayes:  "Political  and  Social  History  of  Modern  Europe,"  vol.  i,  p.  xxi. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  68. 

[    7   ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

than  Mr.  A.  J.  Carlyle  assures  us  that  "it  was  in  the  Middle 
Ages  that  the  foundations  were  laid  upon  which  the  most  charac- 
teristic institutions  of  the  modern  world  have  grown."5 

Such  continuity  in  development  between  medieval  and  modern 
there  surely  is.  The  transition  was  a  slow  and  uneven  one,  but 
transition  there  certainly  was,  and  the  order  of  things  which 
emerged,  the  forces  at  work,  and  the  human  attitudes  and  interests 
which  came  to  be  uppermost  were  different.  And  the  Christian 
tradition  and  idea  system  as  it  took  shape  in  the  structures  of 
medieval  life  and  thought  were  again  continuous  with  those  of  the 
ancient  world,  in  their  most  splendid  portrayal  in  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  and  of  Aristotle.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  with  confidence,  I 
believe,  that  the  thought  structure  and  attitude  of  Christianity  has 
much  more  in  common  with  the  philosophy  of  Plato  than  with  those 
idea  systems  which  are  most  characteristic  of  the  modern  era.  But 
I  venture  upon  these  large  and  dubious  historical  generalizations 
simply  in  order  to  set  over  against  each  other  two  dominant  human 
interests,  one  of  which  does  belong  chiefly  to  the  culture  of  antiquity 
and  Christianity,  and  the  other  to  the  modern  age.  Neither  to  Greek 
philosophy  nor  to  Christianity  did  it  appear  that  the  vocation  of 
man  consisted  in  the  rational  and  scientific  control  over  life  and 
over  nature's  energies  in  order  to  satisfy  human  desires.  For  Aris- 
totle and  St.  Thomas,  speaking  respectively  for  the  ancient  and  the 
medieval  worlds,  man's  essential  vocation  was  contemplation,  the 
possession,  in  thought  or  in  feeling,  of  those  eternal  and  absolute 
perfections  and  forms  which  are  both  the  ultimately  real  and  the 
ultimately  valuable.  For  both  Aristotle  and  St.  Thomas,  the  center 
of  interest  lay  not  at  all  in  the  organization  of  human  life  and  society 
in  terms  of  the  satisfaction  of  natural  wants;  it  lay  rather  in  the 
possession  of  a  Good  which  was  not  of  this  world.  In  how  many 
ways  does  this  contrast  force  itself  upon  our  attention.  The  Stoic 
moralists  condemned  slavery,  but  they  saw  no  way  and,  one  must 
confess,  they  had  little  interest  in  the  task  of  organizing  social  life 
so  as  to  abolish  slavery.  Their  ethics  consisted  essentially  in  the 
acceptance  of  the  human  lot  and  human' experience  as  they  found 

5  "Progress  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  in  "Progress  and  History,"  p.  72. 

F  8  1 


THE  MODERN  PROBLEM 

it,6  not  at  all  in  any  zest  for  the  radical  control  over  and  reconstruc- 
tion of  human  society.  Very  much  the  same  thing  must  be  said  about 
Christianity  in  the  form  which  it  assumed  in  the  ancient  church, 
and  in  the  medieval  world.  Both  sorrow  and  surprise  are  often  ex- 
pressed that  this  should  have  been  so,  that  Christianity  should  not 
at  once  have  set  about  the  task  of  the  organization  of  society  in  the 
light  of  those  radical  moral  ideals  which,  in  the  primitive  gospel, 
shine  with  such  a  simple  transparency.  Instead,  of  course,  what 
happened  was  that  the  historic  church  accepted  and  justified  most 
of  those  institutions  and  structures  which  we  think  it  should  have 
condemned — slavery,  private  property,  political  absolutism  based 
upon  force,  and  implicit  obedience  to  the  powers  that  be  in  all  that 
concerns  the  body  and  its  life,  the  inequality  and  harsh  injustice 
of  the  entire  social  and  economic  order.  The  church  fathers,  with 
a  few  minor  exceptions,  acquiesce  in  these  things  without  the 
slightest  idea  that  it  is  either  possible  or  worth  while  to  attempt 
their  control  and  their  organization  in  the  interests  of  human  happi- 
ness. The  church  fathers  justified  them  as  both  a  punishment  for 
man's  sin,  and  a  remedy,  a  means  of  discipline,  necessary  to  train 
the  will  so  that  it  may  seek  and  find  the  true  values  of  life  which 
have  their  locus  not  here  but  beyond.7 

There  is  here,  it  will  be  agreed,  nothing  of  the  spirit  of  democracy, 
in  the  modern  and  the  radical  meaning  of  that  concept  Men  do  not 
seek  here  to  make  their  world;  they  seek  to  participate  in  and  to 
possess  (or  be  possessed  by)  an  ideal  and  divine  order  and  life  which 
they  do  not  at  all  construct.  That  divine  order  is  given  to  man  to 
know,  to  contemplate,  and  to  worship.  And  just  this  is  the  attitude 
which  the  medieval  social  order  called  for,  whether  it  be  the  uni- 
versal church  or  the  feudal  fabric  which  men  think  of  not  as  a 
structure  to  be  controlled,  made  and  remade,  but  to  be  accepted  and 
possessed.  And  so,  too,  with  the  Platonic  Idea,  and  the  Aristotelian 

6  The  Stoic,  cosmopolitan  "ideal  was  ineffective  because  it  was  embodied  in  a 
sentiment  and  not  in  a  programme."    Burns:  "Political  Ideals,"  p.  88. 

7  Cf .  Troeltsch :  "Die  Soziallehren  der  Christlichen  Kirchen,"  p.  69.    "Immer  aber, 
bleibt  bei  aller  Verstandigkeit  doch  der  moderne  Gedanke  fern,  dass  gerade  der  Aufbau 
einer    geistig-sittlichen    Welt    einen   entsprechended    Unterbau    der    Materiellen    und 
sozialen  Verhaltnisse  erfordere.  Die  Ideologic  des  guten  Willens  fiihlt  sich  fiir  mehr  als 
ein  Jahrtausend  allmachtig,  vollig  autonom  und  selbstgeniigsam." 

[  9  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Form,  and  that  Unmoved  Mover  "which  produces  motion  by  being 
loved."  Life  and  thought  consist  precisely  in  the  knowledge  and  the 
possession  of  these  ideal  yet  most  real  structures.  There  are  differ- 
ences enough  between  the  classical  and  the  Christian  ideals  and 
attitudes  which  will  interest  us  in  a  later  place.  But  obviously  they 
belong  together  in  so  far  as  they  are  both  expressions  of  the  mind's 
attachment  to  ideal  structures  which  call  for  recognition,  knowl- 
edge, and  love,  but  not  for  control  and  mastery,  as  the  modern  world 
understands  these  terms. (When  we  turn  from  these  older  thought 
structures  and  life  attitudes  to  that  which  we  sense  as  distinctively 
modern,  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  dealing  primarily  with  an  alteration 
in  the  fundamental  bent  of  the  mind's  interests.  It  is  no  longer  the 
attitude  of  acceptance,  of  possession,  of  knowledge,  and  of  worship 
which  expresses  the  nature  of  our  world.  Our  world  is  one  to  be 
controlled,  to  be  made  and  to  be  remade,  to  be  exploited  and  utilized 
in  order  that  our  active  human  interests  and  impulses  shall  find 
release  and  satisfaction.  And  here  we  have  the  gist  of  the  contrast 
between  medieval  (and  ancient)  and  modern.  The  historical  transi- 
tion from  the  older  to  the  newer  order,  from  feudalism  to  democracy, 
from  the  handicraft,  precapitalistic  scheme  of  industry  to  the  era 
of  capitalism,  from  the  ascendency  of  religion  to  the  decay  of  reli- 
gion— these  and  more  may  best  be  conceived  as  incidents  in  the 
transition  from  a  world  defined  in  terms  of  Possession  and  Partici- 
pation  to  a  world  defined  in  terms  of  Activity  and  Control.!  It  is 
philosophies  of  action,  of  creative  evolution,  of  the  confrof  over 
nature  and  experience;  philosophies  of  meliorism  and  of  temporal- 
ism  which  voice  the  modern  dominant  temper  with  least  hesitation. 
But,  as  we  shall  later  on  observe,  empiricism  and  subjectivism  are 
also  modern.  Not  so  idealism.  That  has  come  to  us  from  Greek  life 
and  thought  with  its  ideal  of  contemplation  and  possession,  its 
objectivity,  and  its  conviction  that  the  life  of  the  mind  participates 
in  objective,  significant  structures.  And  into  the  tradition  of  idealism 
there  entered,  too,  something  profound  from  the  genius  and  the 
temper  of  Christianity.  Nor  was  this  any  merely  external  addition. 
For  idealism,  in  the  historical  and  proper  sense  of  that  term,  has 
proved  itself  to  be  the  philosophical  framework  for  a  certain  attitude 
toward  life  which  may  fairly  be  called  religious.  How  pervasive  and 

[  10  ] 


THE  MODERN  PROBLEM 

significant  that  attitude,  with  all  that  it  implies,  may  be  for  us  today 
is  the  question  which  we  propose  to  study  in  this  essay. 

We  shall  be  dealing  thus  with  the  relation  between  two  compre- 
hensive idea  systems.  One  of  these  was  the  informing  spirit  of  the 
essential  contributions  made  both  by  the  Greek  experiment  and  by 
the  Christian  ideal  to  the  venture  of  western  civilization.  That  idea 
system  is  idealism.  It  is  the  spokesman  for  something  which  can 
only  go  by  the  name  of  religion.  The  varied  energies  of  the  modern 
world  have  exercised  a  constant  pressure  upon  the  idea  system  of 
religion  and  of  idealism,  and  these  modern  tendencies  both  of  our 
practical  life  and  of  our  more  formal  theories  have  brought  to  light 
a  radically  different  idea  system  and  attitude  which  is  embedded 
within  institutions  and  habits  of  thought  which  may  seem  to  have 
little  in  common.  But  these  varied  modern  structures  issue  from 
one  fundamental  human  attitude  and  idea  system.  These  typically 
modern  structures  appeal,  more  or  less  consciously,  to  some  interest 
which  lies  behind  and  beneath  them,  and  which  exists  in  order  that 
it  may  be  sustained  and  provided  with  material  for  its  growth  and 
its  expansion.  Life  and  thought  are  everywhere  a  matter  of  the 
maintenance  and  the  expansion  of  such  an  interest.  This  is  the 
essence  of  the  modern  discovery  of  nature  and  of  instinct,  of  the 
self-consciousness  of  individuals,  of  social  classes,  and  of  nations. 
The  idea  systems  of  idealism  and  of  religion  are  different.  Here  it 
is  not  so  much  a  matter-of-fact  interest  which  is  thought  of  as  gen- 
erating the  life  of  the  mind,  but,  rather,  certain  objective,  significant 
structures  which  life  and  mind  were  to  possess  and  to  assimilate. 
Ideas  here  look  forward  to  the  good,  rather  than  backward  to  an 
interest.  The  vocation  of  man  is  to  contemplate  and  to  participate 
in  something  which  is  significant  in  itself,  and  not  simply  of  value 
because  it  is  the  fruition  of  a  desire  or  an  interest.  If  life  and  mind 
are  but  the  prolongation  of  certain  interests  which  must  expand 
and  exploit  their  world  if  they  are  to  exist  as  interests,  then  conflict 
is  of  the  very  essence  of  things,  and  peace  and  cooperation,  yes,  the 
arts  of  civilization  themselves,  are  an  illusion.  Our  problem — the 
common  problem  of  all  who  may  face  the  future  with  hope  rather 
than  despair — is  simply  the  problem  as  to  whether  man's  life  and 
his  mind  may  still  be  thought  of  as  participating  in  objective, 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

significant  structures,  or  whether  life  and  mind  are  but  the  expres- 
sion and  prolongation  of  interests.  This  is  the  radical  question  for 
any  theory  of  value,  and  for  any  theory  of  consciousness.  It  is  the 
theoretical  form  of  that  question  which  statesmen  and  public  opinion 
will  sometime  be  called  upon  resolutely  to  face.  When  the  time 
comes  to  decide  what  the  world  order  of  the  future  is  to  be,  shall 
we  go  back  to  those  structures  and  habits  of  thought  which  rest 
upon  the  maintenance  and  the  balance  of  interests,  or  shall  we  go 
forward  to  a  world  in  which  interests  are  worth  conserving,  not 
because  they  happen  to  be  our  interests,  but  because  they  partici- 
pate in  an  objective  and  a  sharable  good?  We  know  now  as  never 
before  what  the  modern  world  means.  Shall  we  go  back  to  naturalism 
and  conflict,  or  forward  to  idealism  and  cooperation  ? 


CHAPTER  II 

DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  MODERN 
ECONOMIC  ORDER 

IDEALISM,  we  have  said,  may  be  viewed  as  the  theoretical 
framework  for  a  certain  fundamental  attitude  and  temper  in 
which  the  mind  looks  forward  to  ideal  yet  objective,  significant 
structures  in  which  human  experience  may  participate.  Such 
an  idea  system  with  all  of  its  theoretical  and  practical  impli- 
cations may  be  set  over  against  that  idea  system  in  which  the  mind 
is  the  spokesman  of  and  the  instrument  for  some  vital  interest  which 
exists  as  a  fact  of  nature,  and  which  is  bent  upon  its  maintenance, 
its  expansion,  and  the  exploitation  and  the  control  of  all  which  its 
world  may  offer.  That  practical  attitude  and  organization  of  human 
life  which  eventuates  in  the  idea  system  of  idealism  is,  historically, 
bound  up  with  certain  of  the  more  profound  traits  of  religion.  Not 
that  religion,  as  an  historical  fact  and  institution,  exhibits  in 
unmixed  form  the  substance  and  the  texture  of  idealism.  Yet  it  has 
done  so  sufficiently  to  warrant  our  saying  that  idealism  is  the  theo- 
retical framework  for  religion.  And  those  energies  which  have 
informed  the  most  characteristic  structures  of  the  modern  age  have 
made  of  both  religion  and  idealism  a  problem  rather  than  a  premise. 
Of  these  powerful  undercurrents  which  have  made  our  modern  world 
to  be  what  it  is,  there  are  two  which  may  be  observed  somewhat 
more  in  detail  in  order  to  understand  the  idea  system  which  charac- 
terizes our  modern  age.  These  two  formative  agencies  are  democ- 
racy and  the  energies  which  have  created  the  modern  economic  and 
industrial  order.  If  we  should  add  to  these  two  a  third,  namely 
science,  I  believe  we  should  have  before  us  the  three  forces  which, 
more  than  any  others,  define  our  spiritual  remoteness  from  the 
traditions  of  the  past.  The  ideals  of  a  radical  democracy,  the  method 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

and  temper  of  science,  and  the  fundamental  attitudes  and  interests 
correlated  with  the  driving  forces  of  the  modern  economic  era,  these 
sum  up  that  revolution  in  our  habits  of  thought  and  our  judgments 
of  value  which  distinguishes  our  world  from  that  of  the  past. 

These  three  formative  agencies  within  the  modern  era  are  not 
three  isolated  forces.  There  are  intimate  relations  between  them, 
which  bind  them  together,  and  make  them  all,  in  the  last  analysis, 
an  expression  of  a  fundamental  attitude  and  idea.  It  is  safer  for 
the  moment  not  to  say  very  much  about  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect  here,  not  to  decide  whether  this  fundamental  attitude 
of  the  modern  man  toward  his  life  and  his  world  is  the  source 
or  the  effect  of  science,  of  democracy,  and  of  our  modern  eco- 
nomic order.  It  is  enough  for  the  present  to  know  that  all  three 
of  these  peculiarly  modern  structures  and  forces  are  indissolubly 
correlated,  either  as  cause  or  effect,  with  an  inner  attitude,  a  putting 
forth  of  mental  energy  in  a  highly  characteristic  and  specific  way. 
It  is  this  attitude,  and  the  idea  system  which  it  has  generated,  that 
has  come  in  conflict  with  the  idea  system  of  religion  and  of  idealism. 
In  this  chapter  we  propose  to  consider  some  of  the  effects  of  the 
pressure  exerted  upon  the  religious  attitude  by  the  modern  energies 
of  radical  democracy  and  of  machine  industry. 

However,  religion  would  appear  always  to  have  been  subject  to 
a  process  of  weathering  and  of  wearing  down.  The  forces  which 
have  tended  to  make  of  religion  a  problem  rather  than  a  premise 
are  older  than  the  modern  age.  They  appear  to  be  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  religion  itself  and  in  the  very  processes  of  civilization, 
as  we  have  come  to  understand  them,  at  least  in  the  western  world. 
Let  us  first  call  to  mind  two  of  these  more  general  characteristics  of 
religion  which  have  ever  tended  to  make  it  appear  problematic  and 
of  doubtful  worth  in  the  enterprise  of  civilization.  There  is,  first,  an 
inclusiveness  about  religion  where  it  has  flourished  with  greatest 
vitality.  This  inclusiveness  of  religion  is  accompanied  by  a  lack  of 
development  and  differentiation  amongst  all  of  the  other  major 
human  interests.  It  is  frequently  observed  that  all  of  the  specific 
interests  and  energies  of  life  were  at  one  time  either  engendered 
or  nourished  by  religion.  Religion  has  been  well  called  the^( Mother 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

of  the  Ajts."1  But  the^ii^stogejzBMcbJiierebyJallsjQ  religion  seems 
doomed  to  jlecay_^s  thej>e_jpecinc  interests; — knowledge^Jiie  enjoy- 
ment^ o_f.  the  beautiful,  the  arts  of  politics  and  war— KJex^p^^md. 
come^to  stand  upon^their.  own  feefrThe  process  of  civilization  is 
marked  bylTprocess  of  differeriHation  and  by  the  division  of  labor. 
As  these  offspring  of  religion  grow  up  and  attain  to  maturity,  they 
no  longer  need  the  support  of  religion,  and  they  throw  off  the  re- 
straints of  any  parental  authority.  At  best  will  religion  awaken  a 
vague  feeling  of  piety  for  that  which  lies  in  the  past,  but  the  energies 
for  the  active  work  of  the  future  will  be  thought  to  come  from  else- 
where. Hence,  when  we  say  that  religion  is  the  mother  of  the  arts, 
we  should  add  that  "the  history  of  civilization  is  the  history  of 
secularization/'2  and  that  the  future  appears  to  belong  solely  with 
those  interests  which  have  grown  to  be  wholly  independent  of 
religion. 

There  is  a  second  general  trait  of  religion  which  makes  it  appear 
increasingly  problematic.  It  stands  out  from  among  the  other 
interests  of  life  with  a  certain  uniqueness.  The  position  which  it 
claims  to  occupy  seems,  in  one  respect,  to  be  utterly  peculiar  and 
exclusive.  All  of  the  other,  the  secular  interests  of  civilized  man, 
appear  to  issue  from  the  responses  which  he  makes  to  the  require- 
ments of  his  natural  environment,  both  physical  and  social.  His 
science  seems  to  be  a  development  of  what  he  needs  to  know  in 
order  to  secure  food  and  shelter,  and  to  satisfy  his  basic  needs;  his 
morality  appears  to  result  from  the  necessity  of  meeting  the  de- 
mands of  his  social  world;  his  art  is  perhaps  an  innocent  and  harm- 
less way  of  exercising  his  surplus  energy  and  saves  him  from  more 
injurious  forms  of  activity.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  this 
view  of  the  matter  would  give  any  fair  account  of  the  full  nature 

1  "Allow  me  to  assert  without  detailed  evidence  that  all  the  arts  of  common  life 
owe  their  present  status  and  vitality  to  some  sojourn  within  the  historic  body  of 
religion ;  that  there  is  little  in  what  we  call  culture  which  has  not  at  some  time  been 
a  purely  religious  function;  such  as  dancing,  legislation,  ceremony,  science,  music, 
philosophy,  moral  control,  .  .  .  Religion,  I  shall  say,  according  to  this  vague  figure, 
is  the  Mother  of  the  Arts:  this  is  its  pragmatic  place  in  the  history  of  mankind  and 
of  culture."  Hocking:  "The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,"  pp.  13-14. 

Cf .  also  Durkheim :  "De  la  Division  du  travail  social,"  ch.  5. 

2Shotwell:  "The  Religious  Revolution  of  Today,"  p.  10. 

[  is  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

of  these  varied  interests;  it  is  but  a  rough  way  of  suggesting  that 
whereas  these  secular  interests  constitute  man's  response  to  his 
world,  religion  appears  to  be  his  response  to  an  over-world.  Such, 
certainly,  is  its  historic  claim.  Small  wonder  then  that  it  should 
distrust  the  finality  and  the  mature  independence  of  all  of  those 
secular  interests  of  civilization  and  culture,  and  small  wonder  that 
these  in  turn  should  look  askance  at  the  uniqueness  and  aloofness 
of  religion.  Religion  can  never  admit  that  any  one  of  the  dominant 
cultural  interests  of  civilized  man  contains  its  own  complete  justi- 
fication or  goal,  but  these,  as  they  develop  and  absorb  the  limited 
energies  of  men,  are  impatient  of  any  such  judgment.  Religion,  in 
some  sense  standing  apart  from  these  cultural  interests,  is  beset 
with  all  the  disadvantages  which  the  unique  and  the  discontinuous 
are  ever  judged  to  possess.  To  understand  and  explain,  and  hence 
to  justify  has  come  to  mean  to  discover  continuities  and  to  banish 
the  unique.  We  need  do  no  more  here  than  barely  mention  these  two 
general  sources  of  the  distrust  of  the  permanent  significance  of 
religion  in  the  work  of  history.  Nor  do  I  think  it  necessary  to  cite 
detailed  evidence  for  the  statements  that  religion  is  the  mother  of 
the  arts,  and  that,  unlike  her  children,  she  claims  to  be  in  some 
fashion  a  response  neither  to  nature  nor  to  human  society,  but  to 
an  over-world.  We  may  be  reminded,  however,  that  if  religion  is 
indeed  the  mother  of  the  arts  and  of  all  secular  interests,  there  can 
scarcely  be  any  complete  gulf  between  the  claims  of  that  over-world 
and  the  requirements  of  man's  natural  environment, 


claims  of  religion  are  wholly  false,  in  which  case  something  ofilliiz_ 

--  -          ....  -  •&  '  —  «  ____——-»  J^_  J—  ___  —  -~>  —  __  _  -  CL.  --  -  -  -  a 

sion  and  falsity^  will_gather  around  the  arts  whichare  the  offspring^ 
oT  religion,  ^r_else  something  of  that  over-world_jvjll_  penetrate  the 
special  artsthemselyes—  knowledge,  the  love  of  jbeauty,  and^all.tEeT 
interests  "o  f  social^  exper  ience—  an3_  these^will  not  be  the^compkte^ 
andTndependent  energies  which  we  so  of  ten  "suppose*  them  to  be. 

,  ___          r  —    *—  ~  *.  —  o  —  .        <  --  _       -———%.  rr  r  .....  , 

These  two  general  sources  of  distrust,  making  of  religion  some- 
thing at  least  problematic,  are  the  concomitants  of  the  entire  process 
of  civilization.  For  all  civilization  is  marked  by  some  increase  in 
the  division  of  labor,  and  some  heightened  sense  of  the  claims  upon 
man's  life  made  by  specific  regions  of  his  natural  and  social  environ- 
ment. But  everyone  knows  that,  since  the  break-up  of  the  Middle 

[  16  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

Ages,  new  and  mighty  energies  in  the  world  of  thought  and  of  society 
have  been  at  work  exerting  a  steady  pressure  upon  the  idea  system 
which  took  shape  while  religion  was  dominant.  These  formative 
agencies  we  have  said  to  be  democracy,  the  new  industrial  order 
together  with  its  concomitants,  and  science.  I  propose  now  to  sketch 
briefly  some  of  the  ways  in  which  democracy  and  machine  industry 
have  influenced  the  older  habits  of  thought.  Whether  anything  of 
permanent  human  significance  was  embedded  within  those  older 
idea  systems  which  found  entrance  in  religion  and  in  idealism,  I  do 
not  now  inquire.  Our  first  task  is  to  envisage  the  play  of  those 
historical  forces  which  have  made  both  religion  and  idealism  appear 
to  belong  wholly  to  the  past  and  not  at  all  to  the  future. 

There  are  ambiguities  in  the  concept  of  democracy,  reflecting 
cross  currents  in  the  elemental  forces  which  enter  into  its  substance. 
One  ambiguity,  resulting  in  two  quite  divergent  ideals  of  democracy, 
may  here  be  noted.  Does  democracy  stand  essentially  for  an  em- 
phasis and  an  idealization  of  the  common  mass  life,  or  does  it  stand 
for  the  ascendency  of  the  individual  ?  Is  the  central  democratic  idea 
that  of  the  "active  and  supreme  function  of  the  imagined  com- 
munity,"3 of  the  "beloved  community"  (Royce),  or  is  it  embodied 
in  Bentham's  dictum  that  "each  is  to  count  for  one  and  for  no  more 
than  one"?  Common  usage  will  justify  either  meaning  of  the  concept 
of  democracy,  and  common  usage  but  reflects  the  outcome  of  a 
complex  historical  process.  The  historical  roots  of  the  ideal  of 
democracy,  at  least  in  one  of  these  two  meanings,  lie  within  an  idea 
system  and  a  social  structure  which  was  religious  and  idealistic.  Its 
roots  are  to  be  found  in  those  ideals  of  social  solidarity  and  a  com- 
munity life  which  found  partial  expression  in  Plato's  "Republic," 
in  Aristotle's  "Politics,"  and  in  the  Stoic  philosophy,  but  still  more 
in  the  development  of  religious  thinking  and  in  the  formation  of 
the  medieval  ideal  from  St.  Paul  to  St.  Thomas.  In  this  church  idea 
of  a  Corpus  Mysticum,  in  this  ideal  of  an  "organic  Idea"  (Gierke), 
which  Royce  has  set  forth  as  the  one  distinctively  Christian 
idea,  we  have  an  instance,  so  far  as  the  life  of  the  individual  is 
concerned,  of  the  attitude  of  Possession  and  Participation.  It  is  for 
the  individual  to  appropriate  and  to  possess  an  objective  Grace 

3Gummere:  "Democracy  and  Poetry,"  p.  17. 

[  17  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

which  resides  in  the  life  of  the  whole  organism.  Participation  in  the 
living  structure  of  this  organism  determines  for  the  individual  his 
status,  his  vocation,  his  dignity,  and  his  worth.  In  describing  the 
medieval  social  structure  and  the  range  of  ideas  to  which  it  gave 
birth,  sufficient  emphasis  is  not  always,  I  believe,  given  to  this 
"organic"  idea.  Thus  Veblen,  in  setting  forth  the  ground  upon  which 
the  rights  of  an  individual  were  thought  to  rest  in  the  medieval 
scheme,  concludes  that  "customary  authority  was  the  proximate 
ground  to  which  rights,  powers  and  privileges  were  then  habit- 
ually referred.  It  was  felt  that  if  a  clear  case  of  devolution 
from  a  superior  could  be  made  out,  the  right  claimed  was 
thereby  established.  .  .  .  The  superior  from  whom  rights,  whether 
of  ownership  or  otherwise,  devolved  held  his  powers  by  a  tenure 
of  prowess  fortified  by  usage;  the  inferior  upon  whom  given 
rights  and  powers  devolved  held  what  fell  to  his  lot  by  a 
tenure  of  service  and  fealty  sanctioned  by  use  and  wont.  ...  It 
may  be  said  that  God's  tenure  of  office  in  the  medieval  conception  of 
things  was  a  tenure  by  prowess,  and  men,  of  high  and  low  degree, 
held  their  rights  and  powers  of  Him  by  a  servile  tenure."4  This 
certainly  is  not  the  entire  story.  There  is  another  aspect  to  the  basis 
of  rights  in  the  medieval  theory.  Besides  the  principle  of  "devolution 
from  a  superior,"  holding  his  powers  by  a  tenure  of  prowess,  there 
was  the  idea  of  participation  in  an  organic  society  held  together  by 
an  autonomous  law.5  This  organic  idea,  says  Troeltsch,  is  the  "active, 
formative,  critical  and,  at  times  when  occasion  demands,  revolution- 
ary principle  of  Christian  sociology."6  This  idea  implies,  in  principle, 
a  respect  and  love  for  all  individuals  and  groups  who  participate  in 
this  divine  life  which  pervades  and  sustains  the  entire  community. 

4  Veblen :  "The  Theory  of  Business  Enterprise,"  pp.  74  ff. 

8  See  the  summary  statement  in  the  essay  of  A.  J.  Carlyle,  "Progress  in  the  Middle 
Ages,"  in  Marvin's  "History  and  Progress."  See  also  the  account  given  by  Troeltsch: 
"Die  Soziallehren  der  Christlichen  Kirchen."  "Nach  innen  in  ihrem  eigenen  Wesen  wird 
die  Kultgemeinschaft  zu  einem  verschiedene  Stufen  und  Funktionen  umfassenden,  aber 
doch  alle  am  Zweck  und  Sinn  des  Ganzen  solidarisch  betilegenden  Organismus.  Die 
Geltung  des  Individuums,  die  Verbundenheit  zu  einen  iiberindividuellen  Ganzen  und 
die  Einverleibung  verschiedener  Stufen  und  Funktionen  oder  inneren  Gliederungen  in 
die  Idee  des  Ganzen  sind  damit  ausgedriickt."  p.  296. 

6 Troeltsch:  ibid.,  p.  304. 

[  18  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

The  individual's  worth  and  his  rights  derive  from  what  he  pos- 
sesses of  the  common,  objective  structure.  And  since  this  organic 
community  is  defined  in  religious  terms,  since  it  exists,  in  idea  at 
least,  as  the  embodiment  not  of  any  particular  political  or  economic 
interest,  but  as  an  expression  of  the  religious  goal  of  all  human  exist- 
ence, the  individual  who  participates  in  that  community  and  who 
comes  to  possess  its  life  has  a  standing  and  has  rights  which  tran- 
scend the  actual  station  to  which  fortune  has  allotted  him.  In  the 
light  of  the  religious  goal  which  defines  the  nature  of  this  commu- 
nity, the  social  and  economic  cleavages  between  man  and  man  and 
group  and  group  are  bridged  over.7  Here  is  something  independent  of 
the  consent  and  the  caprice  of  men,  and  independent,  as  well,  of  all 
the  circumstances  of  historical  accident  and  of  mere  matter  of  fact. 
It  is  through  this  possession  of  and  this  sharing  in  an  objective  whole, 
a  super-individual  life  that,  as  pointed  out  again  by  Troeltsch,  the 
idea  of  subjective  individual  right  first  emerges.8  Here  then  is  the 
organic,  community  idea,  and  here  is  democracy,  in  one  of  its  pro- 
found meanings.  And  here  is  a  social  realism,  the  attitude  of  posses- 
sion and  participation,  the  looking  forward  of  the  mind  to  the 
possession  of  an  objective  structure,  rather  than  its  pointing  back- 
ward to  an  interest  which  is  to  fashion  and  to  utilize  its  world. 

We  feel  that  something  essentially  democratic  still  clings  to  the 
idea  of  group  solidarity,  to  the  "feeling  that  the  masses  alone  make 
us  touch  the  foundation  of  humanity,  the  people  have  revealed  to 
us  the  human  substance,  the  sap  of  the  world."9  But  democracy,  in 
the  modern  world,  has  acquired  a  different  meaning.  It  is  the  con- 
comitant of  the  modern  temper  and  attitude  of  activity.  In  the 
transition  from  the  older,  religious  form  of  the  democratic  idea  to 
the  eighteenth  century  doctrine  of  natural  rights  there  steadily  falls 
away  the  stress  upon  the  possession,  by  the  individual,  of  that  which 
he  holds  from  an  objective,  organic  community.  The  individual's 

7  Cf.  Troeltsch,  p.  305.  "Audi  die  sonst  so  stark  betonten  standischen  Unterschiede 
werden  in  dieser  Solidaritat  und  in  der  Beziehung  auf  den  religiosen  Endzweck  aus- 
geloscht.  Die  Sprache  der  Gesellschaftslehre  kann  dann  fast  demokratisch  klingen  und 
den  naturrechtlich — christlichen  Anspruch  des  Individuums  auf  Anteil  am  Ganzen  und 
seinen  Gutern  Stark  betonen." 

8  Troeltsch :  ibid.,  pp.  305  ff . 

9  M.  Barres,  quoted  by  Wallace :  "Lectures  and  Addresses,"  p.  140. 

[  19  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

rights  are  now  thought  to  reside  entirely  within  himself  and  he  is 
entitled  actively  to  assert  them  over  against  every  objective  situation 
which  confronts  him.  The  individual  no  longer  is  what  he  is  because 
of  some  system  in  which  he  shares,  but  he  is  first  actively  to  create 
his  community  out  of  his  individual  rights.  This  concept  of  indi- 
vidual natural  rights  has  both  a  radical  and  a  conservative  aspect. 
It  is  radical  when  compared  with  the  medieval  concept  of  the  reli- 
gious organic  community,  for  it  bids  the  individual  not  to  discover 
and  possess  his  world,  but  to  make  it — and  to  make  it  conform  to  his 
rights.  And  yet,  as  Bentham  so  vigorously  preached,  there  is  a  static, 
unyielding  character  about  the  concept  of  "rights"  which  renders 
that  concept  unfit  to  be  the  bearer  of  a  thoroughgoing  radicalism. 
After  all,  if  you  talk  about  natural  rights,  you  are  still  dealing  with 
something  prior  to  the  individual,  something  which  he  receives  and 
possesses  as  a  datum,  and  which  is,  in  just  so  far,  unyielding  to  his 
own  will.  Completely  to  replace  the  concepts  of  possession  by  those 
of  activity,  is  to  renounce  the  idea  of  rights  altogether  and  to  sub- 
stitute for  it  the  idea  of  desire  and  its  satisfaction,  the  idea  of 
pleasure.  Let  nothing  stand  in  the  way  of  the  activity  of  desire, 
moulding  and  transforming  in  the  service  of  its  own  satisfaction 
(pleasure  or  happiness)  everything  which  it  finds.  The  individual 
is  now  significant,  neither  because  he  participates  in  and  possesses 
the  substance  of  a  genuine  organic  community  life,  defined  in  super- 
natural and  religious  terms,  nor  because  he  possesses  natural 
rights — nor  indeed  because  he  possesses  anything  which  he  derives 
from  without,  but  solely  because  his  own  activities  meet  with  re- 
sponse and  success.  The  eighteenth  century  doctrine  of  natural 
rights  forms  a  half-way  station  between  the  medieval  religious  con- 
ception, wholly  expressing  the  ideal  of  possession,  and  the  hedonistic, 
utilitarian  conception,  completely  justifying  the  active  desires  of  the 
individual. 

But  the  full  measure  of  democracy's  principle  does  not  altogether 
fit  into  the  concept  of  desire  and  its  satisfaction  in  terms  of  pleasure. 
The  attitude  of  thoroughgoing  activity  means  more  than  this, 
though  modern  hedonism  and  utilitarianism  have  been  important 
derivatives  and  expressions  of  the  democratic  impulse  in  one  of  its 
forms.  yVnd  we  may  say,  I  think,  that  the  radical  and  revolutionary 

[  20  1 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

attitude  which  democracy  stands  for  may  be  summed  up  thus;  man,  "\ 
either  individual  man  or  collective  humanity,  through  an  intelligent   I 
understanding  of  the  nature  of  his  life  and  of  his  world,  may  hope  / 
increasingly  to  direct  and  to  control  his  own  fortunes,  and  only  that  V    *V 
which  is  fruitful  in.  this  enterprise  is  fitted  to  endure  in  a  democratic    f   ' 
age.  The  ideal  of  democracy  says  to  man,  "Be  not  willing  to  live  in    I 
any  world,  in  any  social  order,  which  is  presented  to  you  merely  as    \ 
something  to  possess,  to  contemplate,  to  worship.  Make  your  own      j 
world.  Live  only  in  the  midst  of  such  structures  as  you  yourselves      / 
have  constructed  or  have  brought  under  your  control."  >/ 

Democracy,  in  this  its  radical  meaning,  enters  but  slowly  into 
the  current  of  human  attitudes  and  habits  of  thought.  Nevertheless 
in  some  fashion,  however  halting  and  obscure,  it  has  ever  been  at 
work.  Fgr  is  not^  the  very  essence  of  civilization  itaejf  the  attempt 
of  man  tojnodify  his  world,  to^  construct  something  more  congenial 
to  his  inte.restSj^eal  or  fictitious,  out  of  the  raw  material  which 
nature  offers  him  ?  Invention  isjthe  gist  of  civilization.  Each  suc- 
cessive step  in  the  long  history  has  resulted  fronTmah's  making 
over  something,  transforming  that  which  he  but  finds,  into  a  form 
in  which  it  does  not  exist  by  nature,  but  only  by  art  or  artifice. 
Every  step,  then,  is  marked  by  the  introduction  of  something  new, 
which  is  the  outcome  of  the  transforming  agency  of  human  activity, 
and  which  would  never  have  come  into  being  if  man  had  been  con- 
tent to  accept  and  possess  that  which  he  merely  finds.  Consider 
briefly  the  two  regions  which  exhibit  such  reconstructive  activity, 
the  physical  things  in  outer  nature,  and  the  elements,  instinct  and 
what  not,  which  man  finds  in  human  nature.  The  making  of  fire,  ^ 
of  the  bow  and  arrow,  of  pottery,  the  taming  of  animals,  the  smelt-    I 
ing  of  iron — these  are  the  epoch-making  inventions  which  raise  man  / 
through  the  successive  steps  of  savagery  and  of  barbarism.  Each  ( 
is  the  discovery  of  a  new  art.  But  the  discovery  of  an  art  is  no  mere  ^ 
appropriation  or  holding  fast  to  some  bit  of  nature;  it  is  a  recon-  I 
struction  of  that  which  nature  offers.  And  in  one  momentous  inven-  \ 
tion  or  art,  namely  that  of  speech,  and  still  more,  in  the  use  of    \ 
graphic  signs,  it  is  the  construction  and  the  creation  of  something 
which  nature  of  itself  does  not  contain.  That  is,  systems  of  ideas,     / 
embodied  in  language,  made  possible  by  speech  and  made  perma-/ 

[  21  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

f  nent  by  writing,  depend  in  some  sense  upon  human  activity. 
Instinctive  sounds  and  meaningless_marks_are  woven  together,  with 
the_  result^  that_  something  jtew.  emerges.  Significant  iHeas~and  a 
permanent  language  are  the  outcome  of  working  raw  material- 
sounds  and  marks — into  a  "finished  product."  And  this  process 
spells  activity.  It  has  become  an  all  but  universal  habit  of 
thought  among  us  to  define  the  progress  of  civilization  in  terms  of 
technology  and  of  the  increase  in  man's  control  over  nature.  These 
successive  steps  by  which  early  man  invented  something,  made  over 
some  bit  of  nature's  storehouse  of  raw  material,  are  no  doubt  utterly 
sporadic,  accidental,  unconscious,  compared  with  the  persistent  and 
deliberate  adoption  of  the  inventor's  mental  attitude  in  modern 
culture.  We  expect  tp  make^over  and  to  control  ourjgarld.  "The 
key  to  modernity  is  control,"  says  Shotwell~The  democratic  im- 
pulse of  self-government,  the  view  of  the  world  as  plastic  and  in 
flux,  waiting  to  be  made  over  into  something  which  we  desire,  this 
attitude  is  all  but  lacking  in  primitive  life,  in  the  ancient  world,  in 
all  cultures  permeated  by  religion.  There  were  practically  no  inven- 
tions in  the  ancient  world;  one  wonders  that  an  art  so  simple  and 
elementary  in  principle  as  that  of  printing  should  not  have  been 
discovered  by  the  Greeks.  Apart  from  the  absence  of  any  necessity 
for  the  widespread  diffusion  of  ideas,  the  reason  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  Greeks  did  not  look  upon  the  objects  in  their  world  as  raw 
material  for  human  constructive  and  transforming  activity.  Their 
world  was  one  to  appropriate  and  to  possess. 

If  civilization  does  however  depend  upon  the  inventive  and  trans- 
forming agency  of  men  in  respect  to  physical  objects,  it  depends 
fully  as  much  upon  doing  something  with,  reconstructing  and  trans- 
forming that  which  man  finds  within  himself.  This  reconstruction 
of  human  nature  is  of  greater  significance  than  is  the  reconstruction 
of  outer  nature.  Every  law,  every  social  institution,  every  form  of 
government,  every  practical  idea  or  ideal,  is  something  made  by 
man,  introduced  into  the  world  of  human  instincts  and  passions 
and  motives,  and  doing  something  to  these  elemental  forces  which, 
left  to  themselves,  they  would  not  achieve.  Something  happens  to 
human  nature  in  the  course  of  civilization  just  as  something  happens 
to  trees  and  animals,  grains  and  metals.  We  have  hardly  become 

[    22    ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

habituated  fully  to  the  belief  in  our  own  power  here;  we  still  think 
and  act  as  if,  however  we  may  succeed  in  making  over  physical 
nature,  human  nature  is  something  which  must  be  taken  as  we  find 
it,  and  left  with  us  as  a  static  possession.  These  actual  transforma- 
tions and  inventions  in  the  arts  of  social  life,  the  reconstruction  and 
novelties  in  human  nature,  have  been  even  more  sporadic,  more  the 
result  of  blind  necessity  and  of  fortune,  than  those  inventions  which 
put  us  in  partial  control  over  the  energies  of  nature.  The  demo- 
cratic attitude  and  faith  have  been  more  slowly  maturing  here  than 
there.  There  has  hitherto  not  been  as  much  in  our  prevailing  phi- 
losophy and  habits  of  thought  to  justify  the  hope  of  controlling  and 
actively  making  over  human  motives  and  social  structures,  as  there 
has  been  in  the  region  of  technology,  machine  industry,  and  physical 
processes.  Yet,  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  democratic  attitude  of 
activity  and  control  should  stop  short  of  the  world  of  human  nature. 
It  is  precisely  in  this  human  region  that  men  are  sensible,  as  never 
before,  of  the  imperious  need  for  some  conscious  guidance  and 
intelligent  reconstruction,  if  any  such  thing  be  at  all  possible.  The 
belief  that  it  is  within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  and  that  it  is  the 
one  supreme  task  to  which  enlightened  men  in  all  civilized  commu- 
nities should  now  devote  every  energy — this  belief  and  the  longing 
which  it  expresses,  will  without  any  doubt  be  one  spiritual  deposit 
left  behind  by  the  war.  More  than  ever  before  shall  we  need  a 
philosophy  which  shall  envisage  this  hope  and  this  attitude,  inter- 
pret it,  and  relate  it  to  some  total  view  of  man's  vocation  and  his 
enterprise. 

Democracy  then,  as  an  idea  and  an  attitude,  stands  for^  man's 
interest  jn_^mastering  and  in  moulding  his  world  rather  thaiijr^ 
participating^  ij[  structures.,  which  are  already^  real.  It  connotes^ 
a^tiyity^_^panaion,  control,  behavior,  ra^ie^th^njos^sjssion,  con-^ 
templaliojx^a^LinQwjeJge..  Democracy  thus  interpreted  may  yield 
a  metaphysic  as  well.  Hobhouse  has  set  forth  in  impressive  words 
the  significance  of  such  a  metaphysic.  "If,  then,  the  whole  course 
of  history,  or  say,  rather,  of  physical,  biological,  and  social  evolution, 
is  to  be  summed  up  in  this — that  it  is  a  process  wherein  mind  grows 
from  the  humblest  of  beginnings  to  an  adult  vigor,  in  which  it  can — 
as  in  the  creed  of  humanity  it  does — conceive  the  idea  of  directing 

[  23  1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

its  own  course,  mastering  the  conditions  external  and  internal  of  its 
own  exercise,  if  this  is  a  true  account  of  evolution — and  it  is  the 
account  to  which  positive  science  points — then  we  cannot  say  that 
this  is  a  mean  and  unimportant  feature  of  reality  which  is  disclosed 
to  us.  ...  It  is,  at  any  rate,  something  to  learn — as,  if  our  present 
conclusion  is  sound,  we  do  learn — that  this  slowly  wrought  out  domi- 
nance of  mind  in  things  is  the  central  fact  of  evolution.  For  if  this 
is  true  it  is  the  germ  of  religion  and  an  ethics  which  are  as  far  re- 
moved from  materialism  as  from  the  optimistic  teleology  of  the 
metaphysician,  or  the  half  naive  creed  of  the  churches.  It  gives  a 
meaning  to  human  effort,  as  neither  the  pawn  of  an  overruling 
Providence  nor  the  sport  of  blind  force.  It  is  a  message  of  hope  to 
the  world,  of  suffering  lessened  and  strife  assuaged,  not  by  fleeing 
from  reason  to  the  bosom  of  faith,  but  by  the  increasing  rational 
control  of  things  by  that  collective  wisdom,  the  els  fwos  Xdyos, 
which  is  all  that  we  directly  know  of  the  Divine."10 

It  may  not  be  questioned  that  there  is  an  apparent  conflict  and 
tension  between  this  deeper  meaning  of  democracy  and  all  that 
comes  to  us  from  the  idealism  and  the  religion  of  the  past.  Are  not 
the  two  attitudes  of  possession  and  activity  wholly  incompatible? 
Can  it  be  possible  that  man's  mind  should  be  both  the  instrument 
whereby  vital  interests  win  control  and  mastery  over  the  conditions 
which  surround  them,  and  also  that  it  should  participate  in  and 
possess  significant  structures  which  it  has  not  created  and  does  not 
control?  "Idealism,  it  has  been  said,  is  not  at  heart  sympathetic  with 
the  modern  democratic  conception  of  civilization."11  Yet,  we  have 
observed,  democracy,  in  one  of  its  elemental  strands  at  least,  did 
once  have  its  roots  in  religion.  Something  akin  to  religion  and  to 
idealism  may  again  come  to  be  recognized  as  the  soil  in  the  midst 
of  which  it  can  put  forth  its  best  efforts. 

Let  us  turn  to  another  of  those  basic  energies  which  have  made 
the  modern  age,  and  which  too  may  be  viewed  as  a  concomitant— 
whether  cause  or  effect — of  the  transition  from  the  older  medieval 
idea  system  to  the  modern.  One  need  be  no  orthodox  believer  in  a 
materialistic  or  economic  interpretation  of  history  to  recognize  an 

10  "Morals  in  Evolution,"  pp.  596,  637. 

11  Perry :  "Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,"  p.  188. 

[  24  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

intimate  correlation  between  our  habits  of  thought  and  those  activi- 
ties which  are  spent  in  furnishing  the  economic  framework  for  the 
entire  structure  of  life.  Indeed,  these  industrial  activities  are  for  the 
mass  of  mankind  so  engrossing  that  all  other  interests  must  become 
subordinate  and  must  be  dominated  by  them.  Hobson  has  scarcely 
overstated  the  actual  situation  when  he  writes:  "For  the  brutal  and 
crushing  pressure  of  the  economic  problem  in  its  coarsest  shape — 
how  to  secure  a  material  basis  of  livelihood — has  of  necessity 
hitherto  absorbed  nearly  all  the  energies  of  man,  so  that  his  powers 
of  body,  soul  and  spirit  have  been  mainly  spent  on  an  unsatisfactory 
and  precarious  solution  of  this  personal  economic  problem.  Religion, 
politics,  the  disinterested  pursuits  of  truth  and  beauty,  have  had  to 
live  upon  the  leavings  of  the  economic  life."12  Those  economic 
structures  and  processes  which  have  entered  into  the  modern  world 
have  fashioned  not  only  the  outward  circumstances  of  our  lives,  but 
they  have  inner  and  spiritual  accompaniments  as  well.  A  consider- 
able number  of  students  have,  in  recent  years,  paid  attention  to  this 
aspect  of  the  matter.  Their  studies  leave,  I  believe,  a  vast  and  power- 
ful impression  upon  the  mind.  Here,  one  feels,  are  uncovered  some 
of  the  deep  and  darker  currents  which  flow  within  our  modern 
social  structures,  fashioning  our  modern  ideals  and  habits  of  thought. 
Certainly  the  student  of  philosophy,  if  he  is  to  settle  his  accounts 
with  the  vital  issues  and  the  significant  foundations  of  our  thought, 
may  not  neglect  some  study  of  the  economic  environment  amidst 
which  our  thinking  and  our  living  proceed. 

The  essential  economic  transformation,  as  one  goes  from  the  pre- 
modern  to  the  modern  era,  is  correlated  with  that  shifting  of  attitude 
and  of  idea  system  which  we  have  already  roughly  outlined.  It  is 
the  transition  from  the  attitude  in  which  man's  life  and  his  activity 
points  ahead  to  and  participates  in  a  preexisting  order  of  things,  to 
that  attitude  in  which  his  life  and  his  thought  are  the  spokesmen 
for  interests  which  antecede  them,  and  which  are  bent  upon  con- 
trolling and  constructing  the  world  in  order  to  permit  the  expansion 
of  these  interests.  The  change  from  pre-capitalistic  to  capitalistic 
industry  is  the  change  from  the  sure  possession,  the  contemplation 
and  enjoyment  of  objects  and  of  goods,  of  life  and  of  the  world, 

12  J.  A.  Hobson :  "Work  and  Wealth,"  p.  299. 

[  25] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

to  the  interest  in  incessant  activity  and  the  expansion  of  interests 
for  their  own  sake.  In  the  older  order,  medieval  and  pre-capitalistic, 
man  is  dependent  upon  the  presence  in  his  world  of  that  which  he 
does  not  make,  of  laws,  traditions,  social  structures  whose  recogni- 
tion and  acceptance  have  something  of  the  quality  of  religious  awe 
and  worship,  giving  stability  and  finality  to  all  of  his  life. 

Speaking  broadly,  but  with  more  direct  reference  to  the  facts  of 
the  industrial  order,  the  economic  transition  from  this  older  world 
to  the  modern  world  has  involved  the  substitution  of  the  interests 
and  the  point  of  view  of  the  producer  for  those  of  the  consumer. 
The  consumer  is  the  final  possessor.  When  an  economic  object 
reaches  the  consumer,  all  activity  of  production  is  at  an  end. 
Economic  consumption  connotes  stability,  finality,  the  present, 
possession;  economic  production  connotes  restlessness,  relativity, 
the  future,  activity.  Now  in  a  "natural"  or  nai've  economic  order, 
the  producer  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  consumer,  the  means  exist 
for  the  sake  of  the  end.  In  the  older  order  "the  naive  conception 
that  all  production  was  in  the  interests  of  consumption  had  not 
yet  disappeared."13  Under  the  pressure  of  the  modern  economic 
forces,  consumption,  instead  of  supplying  the  goal  and  the  measure 
for  production,  comes  to  exist  in  order  that  the  activity  of  produc- 
tion shall  go  on  and  shall  be  profitable.  Wealth  is  produced  not 
because  of  its  utility  to  the  consumer  but  in  order  that  it  may 
furnish  the  means  for  producing  more  wealth.  Newer  and  wider 
markets,  colonies,  and  spheres  of  influence  are  sought  for,  not  in 
order  that  the  clamorous  demands  of  waiting  consumers  may  be 
satisfied,  but  so  that  an  outlet  for  the  activity  of  production  may  be 
found. 

Now  the  relation  between  production  and  consumption  furnishes 
at  least  an  analogy — and  a  profound  one — with  the  relation  between 
an  interest  which  generates  an  activity,  and  the  goal  in  which  the 
activity  terminates.  Viewed  naively,  the  utility  which  wealth  pos- 
sesses for  the  consumer  is  the  goal  of  the  economic  process.  Here  is 
something  objective,  something  which  lies  ahead  of  the  activity  of 
production  and  which  justifies  the  economic  process.  For  the  eco- 
nomic processes  to  be  set  in  motion  and  to  be  sustained  solely,  or 

13Sombart:  "The  Jews  and  Modern  Capitalism,"  p.  125. 

26 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

at  least  so  far  as  is  humanly  possible,  by  the  interest  of  the  pro- 
ducer— the  desire  for  profits — is  to  withdraw  those  processes  from 
all  contact  with  and  all  participation  in  those  objective  and  terminal 
structures  which  alone  can  justify  them.  It  is  to  lodge  the  economic 
activities  of  men  in  the  interests  which  initiate  activity  rather  than 
in  the  objective  utility  and  good  which  lie  ahead.  And  this  is  the 
very  essence  of  naturalism  and  of  subjectivism — naturalism,  because 
the  activity  is  but  the  prolongation  of  a  matter-of-fact  interest; 
subjectivism,  because  there  is  no  attachment  to  nor  participation 
in  an  objective  order. 

This  steady  withdrawal  of  the  economic  life  from  its  objective 
goal,  the  possession  of  utilities  by  the  consumer,  is  clearly  reflected 
in  the  classical  and  hitherto  prevailing  economic  theory.  The  arts 
of  consumption,  the  final  destiny  and  enjoyment  of  economic  goods, 
have  been,  in  the  traditional  science,  obscured  and  neglected.  "For 
though,  says  Hobson,  there  is  everywhere  a  formal  recognition  that 
consumption  is  the  end  or  goal  of  industry,  there  is  no  admission 
that  the  arts  of  consumption  are  equally  important  with  the  arts 
of  production  and  are  deserving  of  as  much  attention  by  students 
and  reformers  of  our  'economic  system/  On  the  contrary,  so  absorb- 
ing are  the  productive  processes  in  their  claims  upon  the  physical 
and  mental  energies  of  mankind,  that  the  economic  system,  alike 
for  practitioners  and  theorists,  has  almost  come  to  be  identified  with 
these  processes.  .  .  .  Their  (i.e.,  the  classical  economists')  condem- 
nation of  luxurious  expenditure  and  waste,  alike  in  the  wealthy  and 
the  working-classes,  was  not  primarily  directed  against  the  loss  of 
real  enjoyment,  or  human  well-being,  or  the  moral  degradation  in- 
volved in  such  abuse  of  spending  power,  but  against  the  damage 
to  the  further  processes  of  making  wealth  by  reducing  the  rate  of 
saving  or  by  impairing  the  working  efficiency  of  the  laborer."14  Prac- 
tically, this  subordination  of  the  consumer  to  the  producer  shows 
itself  in  countless  ways, — in  his  increasing  inability  "to  protect 
himself  against  the  depredations  of  organized  groups  of  producers,"15 
in  the  fact  that  so  much  of  what  and  of  how  we  consume  is  deter- 
mined by  the  monetary  profit  of  producers  and  their  skill  in  adver- 

«  "Work  and  Wealth,"  pp.  4,  5. 
15  Hobson:  ibid.,  p.  258. 

[  27  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

tising,  rather  than  by  our  organic,  genuine  needs  as  consumers.  We 
have  learned  the  arts  of  stimulating  unwholesome  and  artificial 
wants  better  than  we  have  learned  how  to  meet  the  legitimate  and 
wholesome  need  of  men  at  large — all  consumers.  That  a  large 
number  of  many  of  our  most  dangerous  social  ills,  gambling,  drink, 
prostitution,  arise  from  such  artificial  and  forced  overstimulation 
of  wants  rather  than  from  already  existing  needs  seeking  satisfac- 
tion, is  scarcely  open  to  doubt.16 

[The  ascendency  of  business,  pecuniary  interests  over  the  con- 
sumer's interest  in  utility  and  serviceability  has  many  concomitants 
both  of  an  economic  and  of  a  wider  cultural  order.  Impersonal  rela- 
tions and  concepts,  so  far  as  the  bulk  of  the  world's  major  activities 
are  now  concerned,  have  superseded  the  directness  and  intimacy  of 
personal  relations.  There  is  nothing  accidental  about  this  under  the 
stress  of  modern  conditions.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  pressure  of 
the  machine  process  imposes  its  discipline  throughout  the  whole 
texture  of  society,  necessitating  routine,  mechanical  standardization 
of  goods,  services,  and  consumption.  This  lies  on  the  surface,  im- 
portant and  portentous  as  it  is.  But  any  act  of  consumption,  the 
possession  and  enjoyment  of  goods  on  the  part  of  their  final  owner, 
is  a  personal  act,  inherently  measurable  in  terms  of  personal  values. 
It  inevitably  belongs  to  the  conscious  experience  of  a  person.  The 
process  of  economic  production,  on  the  other  hand,  even  before  the 
advent  of  machine  technology,  is  a  more  objective  and  impersonal 
process.  And  with  the  rapid  extension  of  the  machine  process,  the 
arts  of  production  cease  almost  entirely  to  be  thought  of  in  terms 
of  personal  activity  and  conscious  initiative.  It  was  certainly  other- 
wise in  the  medieval  and  pre-capitalistic  culture.  Medieval  feudalism 
was  sustained  by  relations  of  loyalty,  devotion,  and  allegiance- 
servility  if  you  choose — rather  than  by  impersonal  or  legal  relations 
of  force  or  of  rights.  The  basis  of  the  medieval  social  order  was  not, 
at  least  in  idea,  mere  obedience  and  yielding  to  a  rigid,  external 
authority  so  much  as  it  was  the  loose  bonds  of  inter-personal  rela- 
tions. In  medieval  communities,  towns,  cloisters,  and  guilds,  there 
dwelt — as  Troeltsch  puts  it — a  "spirit  of  solidarity  and  of  personal 
understanding  and  mutual  help  which,  in  spite  of  a  certain  depend- 

16  Cf.  Veblen:  "The  Theory  of  Business  Enterprise,"  ch.  3. 

[  28  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

ence  upon  traditionalism,  was  utterly  removed  from  all  legal  (i.e., 
abstract,  impersonal)  formalism,  and  primarily  appealed  to  the 
affections  and  dispositions."^) 

Now  it  is  scarcely  to  be  questioned  that  this  kind  of  a  world  fur- 
nishes the  soil  most  favorable  for  religious  ideals  and  habits  of 
thought.  Wherever  one  looks  in  such  a  world  as  this  one  does  find 
a  neighbor,18  one  confronts  persons,  and  one's  life  is  made  up  of 
recognizing,  accepting,  and  responding  to  the  demands  which  issue 
from  these  personal  and  conscious  situations.  This  environment  of 
persons  which  bulks  so  large  is  not  to  be  used  as  a  means,  it  exists 
not  to  be  controlled  and  reconstructed;  it  is  there  to  be  enjoyed 
and  participated  in  and,  one  may  even  say,  worshipped  as  well.  The 
recognition  and  contemplation  of  God,  in  an  order  dominated  by 
these  habits  of  thought,  does  not  appear  as  something  irrelevant  and 
out  of  place.  The  practice  of  religion  is  no  such  violent  setting  in 
motion  of  unused  attitudes  and  idea  systems  as  it  is  in  a  world 
where  everything — our  social  as  well  as  our  physical  environment — 
exists  only  as  something  to  be  controlled  and  made  use  of  by  our 
interests.  Not  processes  awaiting  control,  but  structures  awaiting 
contemplation  live  in  that  world — remembering  all  the  while  that 
we  are  stressing  but  one  aspect  of  the  medieval  order,  and  of  that 
only  as  it  existed  in  idea. 

(Our  world  is  indeed  of  another  fabric.  In  countless  places  may 
we  discern  this  displacement  of  personal  by  impersonal  relations, 
and  its  concomitant  spiritual  effects.  Simmel  has  called  attention 
to  certain  of  the  more  profound  and  subtle  aspects  of  this  vast 
transition.  There  is  the  fact  that,  due  to  the  great  complexity  of  the 
modern  economic  structure,  any  individual  is  now  dependent  upon 
the  results  of  the  labor  of  countless  other  persons,  vastly  more  than 
contributed  to  his  support  under  more  primitive  conditions.  This  is, 

17  Troeltsch :  ibid.,  p.  242.  Cf.  also  the  following  statement:  "Unter  solchen  Um- 
standen    gibt    es   iiberhaupt   kein    Staatsgefiihl,   keine   gemeinsame   und    gleichartige 
Bezogenheit    auf    die    Zentralgewalt,   keine    alles    beherrschende    Souveranetat,    kein 
gleichmassiges  offentliches  Burgerrecht,  keine  abstrakte  und  formell — rechtliche  Bin- 
dung."  p.  242. 

18  "I  might  possibly  treat  my  neighbor  as  myself,  but  in  this  vast  modern  world 
the  greatest  problem  that  confronts  me  is  to  find  my  neighbor  and  treat  him  at  all." 
Lippman:  "Drift  and  Mastery,"  p.  37. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

of  course,  but  calling  attention  to  the  division  of  labor.  But,  along 
with  this  dependence  upon  the  labor  of  an  increasing  number  of 
persons,  we  are  more  and  more  aloof  from  the  individual  beings 
who  stand  behind  the  work.19  The  more  specialized  any  individual's 
labor  becomes,  the  more  does  the  product  issue  from  but  a  single 
and  minute  function  of  his  nature.  It  follows  that  those  regions 
where  we  meet  with  other  individuals,  so  far  as  economic  trans- 
actions are  concerned,  are  but  very  partial  and  superficial  surfaces. 
There  is  little  in  our  economic  intercourse  to  suggest  the  wealth  of 
personality  and  of  conscious  life,  which  is  really  there,  concealed 
behind  the  products  which  we  buy  and  sell.  At  least,  there  is  vastly 
less  than  in  a  social  order  in  which  the  varied  things  which  a  man 
makes  or  does  have  some  sort  of  totality,  into  which  more  of  himself 
has  entered.  The  result  is  that  the  arteries  through  which  the  social 
life  now  flows,  that  network — to  change  the  figure — which  touches 
and  encompasses  men,  is  vastly  more  abstract  and  formal  than  was 
once  the  case.  These  actual  social  relations  are  related  to  the  real 
world  of  persons — to  use  SimmePs  analogy — as  a  geometrical  figure 
is  related  to  a  real,  physical  object,  or  as  an  abstract  form  or  formula 
is  related  to  some  concrete,  living  entity  or  process?^ 
£rhe  resemblance  between  the  economic  structure  of  modern 
machine  industry  and  the  structure  of  the  modern  scientific  idea 
system  is  more  than  superficial.  The  world,  as  conceived  by  the  exact 
sciences,  is  related  to  the  "real"  world  of  our  concrete  experience 
just  as  the  social  relations  created  by  modern  machine  industry  are 
related  to  the  "real"  relations  between  conscious  individuals.  Both 
the  scientific  world  view  and  the  economic  fabric  are  abstract  when 
compared  with  what  is  really  there.  A  similar  abstractness  occurs 
elsewhere  in  concepts  and  structures  which  are  part  and  parcel  of 
the  modern  age.  Thus  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  "rights"  are  abstract 
in  that  they  are  indifferent  to  individual  endowments  and  traits.  It 
is  by  virtue  of  his  belonging  to  some  more  universal  genus,  because 
of  what  he  has  in  common  with  all  other  individuals  belonging  to  that 
genus,  that  an  individual  has  rights.  The  concrete,  the  particular,  the 
contingent,  the  unsharable  does  not  come  within  the  scope  or  the 
protection  of  such  common  rights.  Thus  an  age  which,  like  the 

19Simmel:  "Philosophic  des  Geldes,"  p.  293. 

[  30  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

eighteenth  century,  did  so  much  of  its  thinking  in  terms  of  universal, 
abstract  rights  was  relatively  blind  to  that  region  which  is  filled  with 
the  concrete  and  the  individual.  The  medieval  world,  we  have 
observed,  was  essentially  different.  There,  the  individual  makes  his 
claims,  not  because  of  the  rights  which  he  possesses  through  the  uni- 
versal aspect  of  his  nature,  but  because  other  concrete  individuals 
owe  him  protection  or  submission.  The  consciousness  of  possessing 
rights  can  emerge  only  when  this  texture  of  personal  qualities  and 
relations  is  superseded  by  one  of  impersonal  bonds.  This  same 
essential  abstractness  appears  also,  of  course,  in  the  prevalence  of  a 
"money  economy"  as  against  a  "natural  economy."  All  three  of  these 
indeed,  as  Simmel  remarks — "rights,  science  (i.e.,  die  Intellectuali- 
tat),  money — are  characterized  by  their  indifference  to  individ- 
uals."^) 

The  term  Economic  Rationalism  has  fittingly  been  used  to  desig- 
nate that  structure  of  life  and  of  thought  some  of  whose  results  we 
have  been  surveying.  The  modern  industrial  regime  had  to  over- 
come a  certain  inertia  before  it  could  get  under  headway;  economic 
traditionalism,  the  attitude  of  possession  and  of  acquiescence  had 
first  to  disintegrate  before  capitalism  could  emerge.  We  have 
already  spoken  of  the  substitution  of  the  producer's  world  for 
the  consumer's  world.  But  this  rejection  of  tradition,  this  breaking 
through  of  the  impulse  to  activity,  this  expansion  of  the  economic 
desire  for  pecuniary  gain,  why  speak  of  these  as  having  anything 
to  do  with  any  form  of  rationalism?  Because  all  of  this  involves 
the  formation  and  the  carrying  through  of  a  plan,  rather  than  the 
acceptance  of  a  ready-made  scheme.  It  means  that  men  now  attempt 
to  organize  their  world  and  their  activities,  instead  of  accepting 
the  structures  which  God  or  nature  may  vouchsafe  them.  A  new 
interest,  and  a  new  type  of  person  emerges,  the  maker  of  "projects." 
"About  the  year  1680,"  writes  Daniel  Defoe  in  his  "Essay  on  Pro- 
jects," "began  the  art  and  mystery  of  projecting  to  creep  into  the 
world."21  A  man  with  a  project  has  a  plan.  He  undertakes  some- 
thing. He  sets  out  to  rearrange  his  world  so  as  to  make  it  con- 
form to  his  project  and  realize  his  plan.  A  thread  of  organizing  activ- 

20  Simmel:  ibid.,  p.  469. 

21  Quoted  by  Sombart :  "Der  Bourgeois,"  p.  54. 

[  31  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

ity  binds  together  and  organizes  his  life.  The  entrepreneur  comes 
into  existence.  Such  organizing,  form-giving  activity,  surely  is  a  kind 
of  rationalism.  It  connotes  a  marked  contrast  with  form-receiving 
traditionalism  and  empiricism. 

As  we  go  forward  from  the  time  when  the  medieval  culture  was  at 
its  height  we  find  increasing  indications  of  this  ideal  and  attitude  of 
thoroughgoing  organization  and  control;  one  region  where  this  is  the 
case  has  a  special  interest  for  us.  Max  Weber  has  pointed  out  certain 
striking  analogies  between  the  ideals  of  Protestant  ethics,  especially 
in  the  Calvinistic  sects,  and  the  spirit  of  modern  capitalism.22  The 
similarity  lies  in  their  common  possession  of  a  zeal  for  complete 
organization  and  discipline.  Each  involves  a  break  with  nature,  with 
tradition,  with  the  spontaneous  instincts  and  proclivities  of  natural 
man.  There  is  a  sternness  about  each  of  them  and  a  ruthless  exaction 
in  their  demand  for  discipline  and  obedience.  So  severe  and  heroic, 
so  opposed  to  the  easy  acceptance  of  nature  and  impulse  are  both 
Puritanism  and  capitalism,  that  Weber  speaks  of  them  under  the 
common  rubric  of  "asceticism."  Unlike  early  Christian  and  medieval 
asceticism,  however,  this  modern  type  is  an  asceticism  within  the 
world  (innerweltliche  Asceticismus).  For  the  Calvinist,  unrelenting 
devotion  to  one's  calling,  one's  vocation  within  the  social  order,  is 
the  one  sure  sign  of  election  and  predestination.  Work  and  labor 
rather  than  an  unio  mistica  cum  Christ o,  are  the  witness  to  salvation. 
Not  depth  of  feeling,  but  active  persistence  in  the  pursuit  of  a  plan  is 
the  mark  of  religion  and  the  proof  of  justification. 

That  the  teachings  of  Calvin,  and  the  dominant  temper  of  Puri- 
tanism should  furnish  a  soil  favorable  for  the  newer  industrial  forces 
is  not  then  strange.  Calvin  rejected  explicitly  for  the  first  time  the 
canonical  law  against  interest  and  usury;  he  thereby  gave  definite 
recognition  to  the  fact  that  the  consumption  point  of  view  of  the 
earlier  Christian  ethics  was  now  replaced  by  the  interest  of  produc- 
tion, based  upon  the  economic  productivity  of  money  and  credit.23 
The  newer  spirit  of  Calvinistic  puritanism  found  expression  in  the 
unstinted  praise  of  unremitting  industry  and  thrift  and  the  horror  of 

22 Max  Weber:  Die  Protestantische  Ethik  und  der  Geist  des  Kapitalismus.  Archiv 
fur  Sozialwissenschaft,  1904. 
23  Cf .  Troeltsch :  ibid.,  p.  709. 

[32  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

idleness  and  of  luxury.  All  of  which  furthered  the  division  of  labor, 
the  standardizing  and  methodizing  of  life,  the  limitation  of  consump- 
tion and  the  encouragement  of  production.  In  sum,  it  seems  not  too 
much  to  say  that  "Calvinism  is  the  only  type  of  Christian  social 
philosophy  which  has  unreservedly  accepted  the  foundations  of 
modern  industry."24  Thus  does  it  turn  out — paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem — that  Puritanism  and  Rationalism  are  associated  together 
through  an  asceticism  common  to  both.  Is  there  not  also  some  truth 
in  the  assertion  that  Puritanism  is  the  father  of  modern  military 
discipline?25  At  least  we  shall  recognize  how  deeply  the  ideal  of 
economic  rationalism  has  entered  into  the  tissue  of  our  modern  social 
structures  and  idea  systems. 

Economic  rationalism  connotes  also  a  certain  decay  of  feeling,  and 
an  extraordinary  development  of  intellect.  The  active,  ascetic  temper 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking  is  always  suspicious  of  feeling 
because  feelings  seem  to  be  either  quiet  possessions,  experiences 
which  call  at  the  moment  for  enjoyment  and  which  bring  calm  repose 
and  contentment,  or  they  set  in  motion  inner  disturbances  which 
interfere  with  that  mastery  and  discipline  of  life  which  asceticism 
and  activism  demand.  For  such  a  severe  temper,  nothing  exists  to  be 
enjoyed,  but  everything  exists  to  be  mastered.  For  Puritanism,  the 
goal  of  life  is  remote;  the  utter  majesty  of  God  is  a  symbol  for  the 
incessant  labor  which  falls  to  the  share  of  man,  before  he  be  worthy 
to  possess  and  to  participate,  through  feeling,  in  the  final  perfection 
and  treasures  which  shall  be  his  reward.  The  thought  of  these  distant 
possessions  may  sustain  him  in  his  toil,  but  now,  while  he  labors, 
there  is  no  present  possession,  no  feeling  which  may  serve  as  the 
representative  and  the  pledge  of  his  divine  destiny.  The  whole  of 
modern  culture  exhibits  analogies  to  religious  Puritanism  in  this 
absence  of  enjoyment  and  of  feeling.  We  have  so  complicated  our 
entire  apparatus  and  technique,  we  have  become  so  absorbed  in  de- 
vising means  and  mechanisms  of  all  kinds,  we  have  been  so  fashion- 
ing our  instruments  of  control,  that  the  ends  for  which  these  means 
are  constructed,  and  which  alone  justify  them,  become  more  remote. 
Again,  the  modern  economic  order  gives  us  our  best  illustration. 

24Troeltsch:  ibid.,  p.  718. 

25  Cf.  Weber:  ibid.,  p.  29,  note  i. 

[  33  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Industrial  processes  are  so  intricately  linked  together,  every  eco- 
nomic process  responds  to  changes  and  fluctuations  in  all  other 
economic  processes  the  world  over,  that  we  have  here  a  practical 
world  of  total  r elatedness  and  relativity.  It  is  a  Spinozistic  world 
so  far,  at  least,  as  modes  and  attributes  are  concerned;  nothing  is 
final,  and  everything  points  beyond  itself.  Everything  has  become  a 
means,  a  vehicle  through  which  the  economic  life  passes.  There  are 
no  "end-stations,"  where  the  ceaseless  flow  of  economic  energy 
pauses,  where  possession  and  enjoyment  enter,  and  activity  ceases. 
At  least  such  terminations  are  all  but  accidental,  and,  like  the  inter- 
ests of  the  consumers,  do  not  count  in  the  life  of  the  whole  structure. 
Compared  with  the  refinements  and  mechanisms  in  the  arts  of  pro- 
duction and  in  the  elaboration  of  means,  the  enjoyment  of  values  is 
utterly  chaotic  and  unprovided  for.  "End-stations,"  places  where  we 
cease  to  inquire  into  a  thing's  use  as  a  means,  and  enjoy  and  contem- 
plate it  as  in  itself  valuable,  tend  to  disappear  from  our  life.  But  it  is 
just  in  these  pauses  that  feeling,  rather  than  idea,  comes  into  play.26 
Ideas  look  beyond;  they  point  to  something  not  themselves.  Feeling 
connotes  immediacy,  enjoyment,  present  possession. 

And  yet,  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  whole  world  of  economic 
rationalism  which  works  out  in  a  different  way.  It  is  true  that,  within 
this  idea  system,  the  individual  and  the  personal,  the  attitudes  of 
contemplation  and  possession,  and  the  feeling  of  immediacy  appear 
to  have  no  foothold.  It  is  also  true  that  this  same  modern  culture  has 
witnessed  the  release  of  desire  and  of  feeling,  the  unchaining  of 
countless  forces  of  impulse  and  instinct,  and  this  has  come  about  not 
in  spite  of,  but  because  of  that  very  impersonal  and  objective,  that 
intellectual  and  casually  connected  world  which  science  and  eco- 
nomic rationalism  have  built  up.  By  the  release  of  desire,  I  mean 
something  different  from,  even  if  it  be  only  a  further  development  of, 
the  will  to  mastery  and  control  which  formed  the  common  element  of 
ascetic  rationalism  in  Calvinism  and  capitalism.  This  release  of 
desire  is  what  remains,  perhaps,  after  the  religious  goal  of  Puritan- 
ism has  dropped  away,  and  nothing  is  left  but  the  will  to  power.  It  is 

26  Cf.  Simmel :  ibid.,  p.  457.  "Je  mehr  soldier  Endstationen  unser  praktisches  Leben 
enthalt,  desto  starker  wird  sich  also  die  Gefuhlsfunktion  gegeniiber  der  Intellekt- 
funktion  bethatigen." 

[34] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

then  that  the  release  of  desire  becomes  the  point  of  departure  for 
ethical  and  economic  egoism,  and  the  interest  in  shger  immediacy  is 
the  token  of  the  individual's  discovery  of  himself  .nft  is  not  strange] 
that  this  self-discovery  and  self-consciousness  olthe  individual] 
should  have  steadily  mounted  higher  as  the  environment  of  individj 
uals  more  and  more  takes  on  the  form  of  an  impersonal,  causal,  and 
mechanical  structure.  For  the  mobility  and  freedom  of  the  individ-  < 
ual  can  be  won  only  as  he  becomes  detached  from  his  world;  his 
world  becomes  separated  from  him  only  when  organized  and  denned 
in  objective  and  impersonal  terms.  An  individual  who  is  no  longer  i 
embedded  within  a  network  of  personal  relations  is  thrown  back  / 
upon  himself  just  because  his  world  is  impersonal  and  no  longer 
responsive  to  him  alone.  The  city  dweller,  unwatched  by  neighbors, 
released  from  petty  gossip,  and  living  in  a  world  of  routine  and  mech- 
anism senses  a  freedom  and  self-consciousness  which  the  country 
dweller  lacks.  The  girl  who  prefers  factory  work  at  a  relatively  low 
wage  to  domestic  work  at  a  higher  wage  does  so  because  of  a  freedom 
which  her  impersonal  environment  gives  her.  Likewise  wherevei 
personal  obligations,  such  as  the  allegiance  of  the  serf  to  his  lord,  is 
commuted  into  a  money  obligation,  the  consciousness  of  self  and  of 
freedom  is  enhanced.  The  possession  of  self-consciousness,  in  its 
more  intense  forms,  depends  not  only  upon  the  presence  of  an  alter, 
with  whom  one  may  contrast  one's  own  life,  but  it  also  depends  upon 
an  estrangement  from  an  environment  whose  very  impersonal,  neu- 
tral and  indifferent  character  makes  the  person  recoil  upon  himself, 
seek  within  for  that  which  he  can  no  longer  find  in  whole  regions  of 
his  world.  The  very  universality  of  intelligence  and  that  which  it 
recognizes,  creates  a  common  background,  a  level  tableland  which 
permits  individuals  to  emerge  and  to  be  distinct.  The  concept  of 
rights  is,  as  we  have  observed,  a  rational  concept;  it  defines  some- 
thing common  and  universal  within  human  nature.  It  is  thus  imper- 
sonal, in  the  sense  of  neglecting  the  accidents  of  individuality,  of 
birth  and  of  status.  But  just  because  it  is  thus  common  and  indiffer- 
ent to  the  individual,  it  permits  rather  than  inhibits  a  free  expansion 
of  the  individual.27  Just  so  does  a  money  economy  exert  a  levelling 

27  "Hier  wie  sonst  ist  es  grade  der  Boden  des  gleichen  Rechtes  fur  alle,  der  die 
individuellen  Unterschiede  zur  vollen  Entwicklung  und  Ausnutzung  bringt.  .  .  .  Darum 

[  35  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

influence.  Money  as  a  common  measure  of  all  values  eradicates  in 
principle  all  inherent  distinction  between  servile  and  noble.  Every 
vocation  becomes,  in  theory  at  least,  open  to  everyone.  But  just  this 
vast  levelling  process  serves  powerfully  to  stimulate  competition  and 
individualism,  for  the  individual  now  confronts  a  world  where  every- 
thing is  open  to  him.  It  is  money,  a  levelling  tool,  impersonal  and 
intellectual,  which  accomplishes  this.  Thus  it  is  that  economicration- 
alism  brings  about  the  release  of  desire  and  of  the  individual^ 

One  further  fact  may  be  mentioned  bearing  on  the  correlation 
between  the  modern  economic  order  and  individualism.  It  is  an 
obvious  truth  that  machine  industry  and  the  division  of  labor  drive 
in  a  wedge  between  the  individual  worker  and  the  final  and  total 
object  which  eventually  emerges.  The  individual  worker  sees  as  the 
product  of  his  own  labor  something  utterly  fragmentary  and  partial; 
he  becomes  separated  from  the  finished  totality.28  But  it  is  only 
structures  and  objects,  which  are  in  some  sense  totalities,  to  which 
the  self  can  be  devoted  and  in  which  it  may  be  interested.  No  longer 
able,  then,  to  embody  one's  self  in  one's  work,  one  must  look  within, 
there  to  uncover  whatever  dim  and  hidden  resources  of  feeling,  of 
longing  and  of  desire  there  may  be.  It  is  no  historical  accident  that 
the  whole  movement  of  Romanticism  in  life  and  in  thought,  the  re- 
lease of  individual  desire  and  feeling,  the  expansion  and  self- 
consciousness  of  individuals  and  of  nations  should  swell  to  mighty 
proportions  as  the  structures  of  economic  rationalism  become  fas- 
tened upon  modern  industry  and  life. 

Some  general  reflections  such  as  these,  then,  may  suffice  to  show 
why  it  is  that  economic  rationalism  and  the  intellectualism  of  science 
have  carried  along  with  them  an  uncompromising  individualism,  re- 
leasing in  greater  and  greater  measure  the  energies  of  desire.  Other- 
wise the  marriage  of  rationalism  and  of  individualism  might  appear 
to  be  a  strange  union.  To  Plato  and  to  the  Stoics  it  would  have  been 

ist  die  rationalistische  Weltauffassung — die,  unparteiisch  wie  das  Geld,  auch  die 
sozialistische  Lebensbild  genahrt  hat — die  Schule  des  neuzeitlichen  Egoismus  und  des 
riicksichtslosen  Durchsetzens  der  Individuality  geworden."  Simmel :  ibid.,  p.  465. 

28  "The  whole  wage-earning  system  is  an  abomination,  not  only  because  of  the 
social  injustice  which  it  causes  and  perpetuates,  but  also  because  it  separates  the  man 
who  does  the  work  from  the  purpose  for  which  the  work  is  done."  B.  Russell:  "Why 
Men  Fight,"  p.  148. 

[  36  ] 


DEMOCRACY  AND  MODERN  ECONOMIC  ORDER 

inconceivable.  Their  rationalism  did  not  release  desire  and  did  not 
spell  individualism.  It  left  the  individual  still  confronted  with  an 
objective  and  divine  order  which  he  might  appropriate  and  in  which 
he  might  participate.  That  individualism  and  sense  of  personal 
worth  which  developed  rapidly  at  the  close  of  the  ancient  world,  and 
which  received  such  marked  emphasis  within  the  ethic  of  Chris- 
tianity was  of  a  different  order  from  the  individualism  and  the  sub- 
jectivism of  the  modern  age.  There  is  indeed  a  motive  common  to 
both  ages.  The  individual  is  thrown  back  upon  himself  because  some 
region  of  his  environment  which  formerly  was  the  home  of  significant 
structures  inviting  the  mind's  participation,  falls  to  pieces.  At  the 
close  of  the  ancient  world  it  was  the  social  and  political  structures 
which  broke  up,  and  no  longer  presented  themselves  as  the  objective 
counterpart  of  human  values,  as  they  did  in  the  earlier  religious 
institutions  of  antiquity,  and  as  they  had  been  reflected  and  idealized 
in  the  teachings  of  the  great  philosophers.  In  the  modern  age  it  was 
physical  nature  which,  with  the  advance  of  science,  excluded  per- 
sonal values.  And  the  economic  forces  of  modern  industry  confirmed 
in  practice  what  science  seemed  to  teach  in  theory.  Man's  world 
becomes  impersonal,  and,  as  in  the  close  of  the  ancient  world,  the 
individual  is  thrown  back  upon  what  he  may  discover  within.  Esse 
est  per  dpi  is  the  formula  for  more  than  an  isolated  current  of  phil- 
osophical reflection.  But,  in  the  religious  thought  of  late  antiquity 
and  within  Christianity,  the  individual,  thrown  back  upon  himself, 
discovered  in  his  inner  life  the  embodiment  and  the  hope  of  a  divine 
order.  That  world  could  still  be  possessed  and  appropriated,  even  if 
the  world  of  time  and  of  history,  of  empires  and  of  governments 
should  utterly  fall  away.  In  the  idea  system  of  modern  individualism, 
that  is  not  the  case.  The  very  attitudes  which  make  possible  the  con- 
templation and  the  appropriation  of  significant  structures  have  been 
subject  to  the  disintegrating  forces  which  we  have  sketched.  The 
result  is  that  more  and  more  what  the  individual  finds  within  himself 
is  simply  desire  and  feeling,  impulse  and  instinct.  He  no  longer  finds 
himself  within  a  significant  and  objective  order  which  is  to  be  appro- 
priated by  him.  His  world  is  for  him  to  make,  and  his  life  is  to  be| 
one  of  outward  expansion  and  achievement,  bringing  power,  satis^ 
faction  and  pleasure. 

[37] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

We  have  wished  to  stress  those  concomitants  of  modern  economic 
rationalism  which  illustrate  the  characteristic  temper  and  idea 
system  of  the  modern  age.  The  world  is  essentially  material  to  be 
utilized  by  men's  interests  in  order  that  such  interests  may  expand 
and  prosper.  The  mind  with  all  its  ideas,  points  back  to  these  inter- 
ests which  it  is  to  serve.  It  is  such  interests  which  are  to  control  and 
to  master  everything  which  lies  ahead  of  or  outside  of  them.  Organi- 
zation and  mastery  are  here  the  significant  things.  Man  is  to  make 
the  structures  amidst  which  he  is  to  live.  Such  is  the  radical  essence 
of  democracy,  and  such  is  the  temper  of  a  world  fashioned  by  mod- 
ern industry.  It  is  clear  enough  that  this  is  a  different  world  from  one 
in  which  man's  vocation  lies  in  the  discovery  and  the  appropriation 
of  structures  which  are  themselves  significant,  and  which  are  not 
made  by  his  will  to  power  and  mastery.  Such  structures,  if  there  be 
any  such,  exist  not  for  control  and  exploitation,  but  for  knowledge, 
contemplation,  and  worship.  Here  then  are  the  two  idea  systems,  the 
two  attitudes  which  we  desire  to  understand  and  to  estimate.  The 
attitude  of  possession  and  contemplation  connotes  religion,  and  its 
theoretical  framework,  idealism.  Let  us  next  turn  from  the  modern 
age  to  inquire  into  the  elemental  nature  of  the  religious  tradition  in 
the  historical  life  of  humanity. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

IDEALISM,  we  have  said,  is  the  philosophical  framework  for 
that  practical  concern  and  attitude  of  life  which  men  know  as 
religion.  In  the  previous  chapter  we  have  been  observing  the 
pressure  exerted  upon  this  one  of  life's  major  interests  by  two 
of  the  great  formative  forces  within  the  modern  world,  democ- 
racy and  economic  rationalism.  But  what  is  this  interest  itself  and 
wherein  consists  the  substance  of  the  religious  tradition?  I  am  aware 
of  the  many  pitfalls  in  any  attempt  to  define  some  essence  of  reli- 
gion. It  may  reasonably  be  doubted  whether  any  such  definition 
is  possible,  or  if  possible,  whether  it  can  be  of  much  service.  Those 
two  general  characteristics  of  religion  which  have  already  claimed 
our  attention — its  undifferentiated  quality,  whereby  it  appears  his- 
torically as  the  source  of  many  varied  interests  which  grow  out  of  it, 
acquire  definiteness  and  independence,  and  its  uniqueness  in  that 
it  responds  to  an  over-world — these  two  qualities  of  religion  make 
any  definition  a  doubtful  matter.1  There  is  no  thought  here  of  ex- 
tracting the  common  element  of  all  religions  and  reducing  it  to  a 
ready  formula.  Any  such  universal  and  common  feature  would  be 
utterly  vague  and  indefinite  as  well  as  totally  inadequate  to  express 
the  central  content  of  a  single  one  of  the  historical  religions.  Nor 
shall  we  revert  exclusively  to  the  embryology  of  religion  and  look 
to  primitive  culture  for  the  clearest  disclosure  of  the  essence  of 
religion.  The  anthropologist  who  studies  the  massive,  unconscious 
and  primordial  attempts  of  early  man  to  build  for  himself  a  religion 

1  Yet  those  writers  who,  like  C.  C.  J.  Webb  and  Gilbert  Murray,  urge  that  religion 
cannot  be  denned,  have  succeeded  in  telling  some  important  things  about  religion. 
Cf .  Webb :  "Problems  in  the  Relation  of  God  and  Man,"  pp.  3  ff.,  and  Murray : 
"Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion,"  p.  18.  Leuba,  in  the  appendix  of  "A  Psychological 
Study  of  Religion,"  has  compiled  an  instructive  list  of  definitions  of  religion. 

[  39  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

may  sometimes  forget  what  Aristotle  so  well  knew,  that  the  real 
nature  of  anything  which  lives  in  time  is  not  at  all  revealed  in  the 
early  stages  of  its  growth.  It  only  is  that  which  it  has  in  it  to  become. 
In  all  of  our  observation  and  description  of  historical,  anthropo- 
logical, and  archeological  material,  some  idea  and  some  estimate  of 
the  true  worth  and  destiny  of  the  forces  and  facts  we  are  observing 
is  present  in  our  minds.  It  guides  us,  however  unawares,  in  the 
selection  of  those  data  and  aspects  of  data  which  we  suppose  to  be 
pertinent  to  the  inquiry  in  hand.  To  uncover  the  essence  of  religion 
is  thus  in  part  a  normative  task;  along  with  anthropology  and  psy- 
chology, philosophy  and  metaphysics  must  contribute  to  the  enter- 
prise. I  propose  then  in  this  chapter  to  characterize  the  substance 
of  the  religious  tradition.  The  justification  for  the  interpretation 
here  set  forth  will  lie,  not  only  in  whatever  historical  or  anthropo- 
logical data  may  be  adduced,  but  in  the  validity  of  certain  ideas  and 
points  of  view  which  will  emerge  more  fully  in  the  further  develop- 
ment of  the  argument. 

There  are  comprised  within  the  religious  tradition  of  humanity 
two  distinguishable  elements  which  are,  nevertheless,  for  the  religious 
tradition  itself,  intimately  and  indissolubly  related.  There  are  some 
considerations,  familiar  to  everyone,  which  may  at  the  outset  serve 
to  make  clear  how  these  two  constituent  aspects  of  the  religious 
tradition  may  be  analyzed.  Everyone,  I  think,  would  assent  to  the 
belief  that  the  historical  religions,  Christianity  for  instance,  contain 
certain  elements  which  might  remain  wholly  untouched  and  un- 
harmed in  a  world  where  the  prevailing  habits  of  thought  were  com- 
pletely naturalistic,  atheistic,  and  seemingly  anti-religious.  One  need 
by  no  means  imply  that  these  unscathed  elements  would  lose  nothing 
through  such  a  process  of  attrition,  yet  however  much  may  drop  out, 
we  shall  recognize  some  link,  however  tenuous,  between  that  which 
remains,  and  that  which  has  been  lost.  There  is  a  quality  almost 
pathetic  in  man's  belief  that  there  is  that  which  would  remain  after 
the  decay  of  all  positive  religion  and  which  itself  would  be  not 
unworthy  of  being  called  a  new  religion.  Guyau,  writing  of  the  "non- 
religion  of  the  future,"  bids  us  see  in  the  worship  of  the  family,  in  the 
pure  love  of  the  ideal,  in  the  finer  feelings  of  social  solidarity,  in 
scientific  disinterestedness,  and  in  the  creative  enjoyment  of  the 

[  40  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

beautiful,  a  new  and  "non-mystical,"  a  wholly  naturalistic  religion.2 
Dewey  has  bidden  philosophy  take  notice  of  "a  new  individualism  in 
art  and  letters,  with  its  naturalistic  method  applied  in  a  religious, 
almost  mystic  spirit  to  what  is  primitive,  obscure,  varied,  inchoate, 
and  growing  in  nature  and  human  character."3  Thus,  let  God,  free- 
dom, and  immortality,  taken  with  any  literalness,  become  but  the 
shibboleths  of  an  enfeebled  superstition,  would  not  morality  and 
loyalty,  imaginative  art,  human  love  and  sympathy  remain,  in  some 
measure,  and  would  they  not  express  themselves  in  sentiments  and 
in  words  to  which  something  of  the  quality  of  religion  would  still 
cling  ?  Would  not  all  these,  indeed,  become  more  precious,  since  they 
alone,  and  nothing  remote  and  transcendent,  would  receive  undivided 
and  unstinted  devotion? 

It  is  such  reflections  as  these  which  let  us  see  to  how  great  an 
extent  the  historic  religions  have  given  utterance  to  that  which  would 
still  exist  and  be  cherished  in  a  world  where  human  life  is  thought 
to  be  hemmed  in  everywhere  by  blind  fate,  brute  fact,  or  mechanical 
necessity,  or  any  other  non-God  which  future  knowledge  may  chance 
to  disclose.  On  this  side  religion  has  portrayed  and  given  articulate 
voice,  through  imagination,  belief,  and  worship,  to  those  things 
which  man  most  of  all  cares  for  and  cherishes,  to  those  values  and 
ideals  which  his  own  experience  offers  him,  and  which  would  con- 
tinue to  demand  his  allegiance  whether  or  no  anything  in  man's 
environment  made  answer  to  them,  whether  or  no  they  elicited  any- 
thing from  man's  world  save  a  bare  echo  of  themselves.  On  this  side 
religion  has  been  an  utterance  of  man's  desires  and  wishes,  his 
interests  and  his  purposes;  religion  here  is  an  imaginative  portrayal 
of  these  very  real  and  very  human  things.  And  if  this  were  all,  we 
could  indeed  ask  pertinently  with  Santayana,  "what  is  this  whole 
phenomenon  of  religion  but  human  experience  interpreted  by  human 
imagination?"  And  if  only  "the  humanistic  tendencies  of  the  Renais- 

2  Guyau :  "The  Non  Religion  of  the  Future,"  pp.  207  ff.  This  volume  still  remains, 
I  believe,  the  most  finely  sympathetic  and  philosophical  exposition  of  the  genuine 
religious  possibilities  of  an  imaginative  naturalism. 

3J.  Dewey:  "The  Philosophy  of  Maeterlinck,"  Hibbert  Journal,  July,  1911.  Cf. 
also  Thomas  Davidson:  "American  Democracy  as  a  Religion."  Int.  Jour.  Ethics,  vol. 
10,  1899. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

sance  could  have  worked  on  unimpeded,  this  interpretation  of 
religion  might  really  have  prevailed."  The  whole  function  of  religion 
might  then  have  been  understood,  "simply  to  lend  a  warm  mystical 
aureole  to  human  culture  and  ignorance";  religion  would  be  in  sub- 
stance an  "imaginative  achievement,  a  symbolic  representation  of 
moral  reality."*  This  aspect  of  religion,  then,  in  which  it  bodies 
forth  the  permanent  desires  and  valuings  of  human  life,  thought  of 
in  abstraction  from  the  real  environment  of  man — this  we  shall 
speak  of  as  the  immanent,  the  empirical,  the  hither  side  or  content 
of  the  religious  tradition. 

But  the  religious  mind  has  always  concerned  itself  with  some- 
thing over  and  above  the  hither  side  of  experience,  with  something 
more  than  a  portrayal,  in  imagination,  of  the  permanent  desires  of 
men.  It  has,  from  primitive  religion  through  all  of  the  historical 
religions,  laid  claim  to  possess  something  of  cosmic  and  universal 
import;  it  has  supposed  itself  authorized  to  make  some  assertion 
about  the  environment  of  human  life  and  experience,  and  about 
some  response  which  reality  makes  to  the  energies  of  our  minds. 
Religion  has  claimed  to  be  true  as  well  as  relevant  to  the  interests 
which  come  to  light  in  the  life  of  mind  and  of  reason.  It  thinks  of 
itself  as  having  not  only  a  function  within  the  domain  of  experience, 
of  man,  and  of  society,  but  also  as  pointing  to  and  disclosing  quali- 
ties and  existences  of  the  real  world.  Of  all  life's  interests  religion  has 
been  the  most  obdurately  metaphysical  and  realistic.  Speak  as  you 
will  of  its  pragmatic  sanction,  its  utility,  its  character  as  symbolic 
of  feeling  and  emotion,  or  of  its  function  in  man's  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, if  this  other  side  of  religion  has  escaped  your  analysis,  then 
have  you  missed  the  heart  of  it.  So  essential  in  the  life  of  religion 
has  this  characteristic  been,  that  I  think  many  misunderstandings 
and  equivocations  would  be  avoided  if  the  word  "religion"  were  not 
used  in  speaking  of  an  organization  or  an  idea  which  recognizes 
only  the  first  aspect  of  religion,  that  which  we  have  spoken  of  as 
its  immanent  aspect  and  structure.  This  second  function  of  religion 
we  may  describe  as  its  cognitive  function.  The  cognitive  side  of  the 
religious  attitude  will  denote,  then,  a  reference  to  some  idea  or 
knowledge  of  a  reality  or  realities  which,  in  some  genuine  meaning, 

4Santayana:  "Winds  of  Doctrine,"  pp.  39,  46.  "Reason  in  Religion,"  p.  12. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

are  other  than  the  immanent  strivings  and  values  which  are  resident 
within  experience. 

But  we  need  at  once  to  make  a  further  statement  about  these  two 
aspects  of  the  religious  tradition,  or  the  religious  attitude.  Not 
every  idea  which  claims  metaphysical  or  cognitive  validity  is  neces- 
sarily religious,  any  more  than  every  utterance  of  some  felt  need  or 
wish,  however  fundamental,  need  be  religious.  It  is  an  essential 
characteristic  of  religion  that  these  two  elements  should  be  so  fused 
together  that  there  is  some  mutual  relevancy  between  the  system 
of  that  which  man  values  and  strives  for  on  the  one  hand,  and  that 
which  man  supposes  to  be  the  real  environment  of  his  life,  on  the 
other  hand.  This  relevancy  may  take  on  the  form  of  a  direct  and 
affirmative  response  which  reality  makes  to  the  engrossing  interests 
of  man's  life.  But  the  relevancy  may  be  less  naive,  more  hidden,  and 
more  complex.  Some  interaction  and  mutual  implication  there  will 
be  between  the  "internal"  and  the  "external"  meaning  of  the  reli- 
gious idea,  between  that  which  is  possessed  within  the  area  of  con- 
sciousness and  of  history,  and  that  which  is  their  background  and 
environment,  between  the  immanent  and  empirical,  and  that  to 
which  there  is  some  knowledge  reference.  If,  for  instance,  loyalty 
be  thought  of  as  the  most  significant  and  the  central  moral  value 
or  virtue,  then  loyalty  can  generate  a  religious  attitude  or  conscious- 
ness only  if,  in  addition  to  its  immanent  or  moral  and,  so  to  speak, 
pragmatic  value,  it  also  possesses  a  cognitive  and  metaphysical 
reference  in  such  wise  that  it  points  to  and  implies  the  reality  of 
something  superhuman,  a  universal  community,  or  an  ideal  of 
transcendent  worth.  In  sum,  the  religious  tradition  has  to  do  essen- 
tially with,  first,  the  discovery  and  utterance  of  man's  most  perma- 
nent desires,  hopes,  and  experiences,  the  immanent  side  of  the  reli- 
gious attitude;  secondly,  with  some  idea  which  is  believed  to  be 
genuinely  true,  and  to  yield  a  knowledge  of  the  environment  of 
experience,  the  cognitive  aspect,  and  thirdly,  with  the  belief  in  some 
solidarity  and  mutual  intimacy  of  these  two  functions. 

It  may  be  urged  that  so  far  we  have  said  nothing  about  religion 
and  the  religious  interest  which  might  not  equally  well  be  said  of 
other  interests  and  attitudes.  Can  one  indeed  escape  the  supposition 
that,  in  the  final  analysis,  every  idea  roots  itself  in  some  activity, 

[  43  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

some  need,  some  dynamic  and  instinctive  wish,  and  also  that  it 
bodies  forth  some  relation,  however  concealed  and  subtle,  with 
some  real  object?  Can  we  withhold  from  any  idea  that  doubleness 
of  function,  that  pointing  in  two  directions  which  is  so  apparent 
and  fundamental  in  the  case  of  sense  organs  existing,  as  they  do, 
at  the  boundary  between  organism  and  environment  ?  But  it  is  reli- 
gion which,  from  first  to  last,  has  borne  witness  to  this  fusion  and 
interpenetration  of  the  immediately  practical  and  vital,  and  the 
outlying  objective  Real.  The  life  of  religion  reaches  down  into  the 
primitive,  the  instinctive,  into  the  region  of  feeling,  impulse,  and 
desire;  it  also  seeks  to  disclose  and  to  make  known  to  man  some 
objective  order  of  things  conceived  as  ultimate  and  inclusive.  The 
other  arts  of  life  show  less  of  this  doubleness  of  function;  they  show 
a  bias  either  in  one  direction  or  in  the  other,  toward  the  internal 
and  human,  or  toward  the  external  and  the  real.  Poetry  and  music 
give  expression  primarily  to  an  idea,  a  mood,  a  possession  of  the 
mind  and  this  is  all  we  commonly  ask  of  the  fine  arts.  We  are  content 
if  morality  serve  to  organize  the  realm  of  conduct,  of  desire,  and  of 
will.  And  we  have  learned  to  expect  science  to  be  impersonal  and 
objective.  Thus  here  is  division  of  labor.  Art  and  morality — in 
various  ways  of  course — are  human,  immanent;  if  we  say  that  they 
are  also  "true,"  it  is  only  that  they  faithfully  embody  our  meanings 
and  fancies,  whereas  science  is  really  cognition.  Now  this  is  neither 
very  profound  nor  accurate,  though  it  is  no  doubt  the  common  sense 
supposition  concerning  these  matters.  And  in  comparison  with  these 
interests  religion  seems  the  more  primitive;  it  has  yielded  less  to 
the  process  of  specialization.  For  it,  "immanent"  and  "cognitive" 
are  not  yet  sundered. 

But  with  these  two  ingredients  of  the  religious  consciousness  and 
their  solidarity  before  us,  we  have  now  to  face  an  issue  which  is 
important  not  only  for  the  student  of  anthropology  and  the  history 
of  religion,  but  which  also  concerns  some  fundamental  problems 
of  psychology  and  of  metaphysics.  Our  understanding  of  the  reli- 
gious tradition  will  differ  widely  according  as  to  which  of  these  two 
aspects  we  make  our  point  of  departure,  and  according  to  the  direc- 
tion, so  to  speak,  in  which  we  suppose  the  current  from  one  to  the 
other  to  run.  And  we  may  pause  for  a  moment  merely  to  indicate 

[  44  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

certain  of  the  larger  problems  of  philosophy  which  hinge  upon  an 
issue  wholly  analogous  with  the  one  which  meets  us  here  in  seeking 
to  understand  the  origin  of  religion.  Touching  the  knowledge  which 
we  have  of  nature  and  of  other  selves  it  is  to  be  asked  whether  we 
start  from  that  which  is  immanent  within  the  life  of  consciousness 
and  then  proceed  outward  through  a  process  of  projection,  piecing 
together  fragments,  always  more  certain  of  the  internal  than  of  the 
external,  of  the  parts  than  of  the  whole,  of  the  immediate  than  of 
the  remote.  Or  may  we  be  said,  in  any  sense,  to  proceed  in  the 
opposite  direction,  discovering  the  internal,  the  human  and  the  sub- 
jective within  something  more  total  and  objective  which  we  already 
possess  and  in  some  fashion  know,  going  then  from  the  whole  to  the 
parts,  from  the  knowledge  of  outer  and  real  structures  to  the  dis- 
covery of  ourselves?  The  traditional  Cartesian  assumption  of  the 
immediate  certainty  of  self -consciousness  and  the  doubt  of  all  else 
besides  implies  that  it  is  only  possible  for  the  mind  to  move  out- 
ward to  the  real  from  its  own  near  and  immediate  presentations 
and  perceptions.  The  current  here  is  entirely  in  the  one  direction. 
This  is  certainly  the  traditional  manner  of  thinking.  It  is  in  these 
terms  that  the  problem  of  knowledge  is  usually  formulated.  Indeed, 
it  is  because  of  this  assumption  that  there  is  a  problem  of  knowl- 
edge. How — so  the  question  runs — starting  with  an  unattached, 
isolated  idea,  how  comes  it  that  such  an  idea  finds  its  way  to  a  real 
object,  so  as  to  know  that  object?  In  psychology  there  is  the  question 
as  to  the  relation  between  the  processes  of  discrimination  and  asso- 
ciation, between  the  apprehension  of  totalities  within  which  parts 
are  distinguished,  and  the  piecing  together  of  fragments  to  construct 
some  whole.  In  logic  there  is  the  question  of  the  relation  between 
induction  and  deduction,  and  in  ethics  there  is  the  problem  as  to 
the  relation  between  felt  interest  and  objective  value.  The  concept 
of  projection  is  applicable  throughout,  and  it  defines  a  certain  type 
of  theory,  one  in  which  the  real  is  but  a  projection  of  the  human; 
knowledge  of  totalities  and  of  universals  but  a  projection  of  what 
is  particular;  value  and  the  good  but  projections  of  feeling  and 
interest;  other  minds  but  projections  of  our  own.  These  are  theories 
of  nominalism  and  of  humanism.  They  are  theories  of  projection. 
Now  animism,  as  an  account  of  the  basis  and  origin  of  religion, 

[  45  1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

is  such  a  projection  theory.  And  the  problem  touching  the  adequacy 
of  animism  to  interpret  the  roots  of  religion  is  one  with  the  larger 
philosophical  issue  which  meets  us  elsewhere.  Let  it  be  agreed  that 
there  are  the  two  directions  in  which  the  religious  consciousness 
points,  within  to  conscious  values  and  interests,  outward  to  some- 
thing objective  and  cosmic.  Religion  is  the  spokesman  for  the  mutual 
intimacy  of  these  two  regions.  But  which  of  these  has  the  position 
of  priority,  logical  or  temporal?  Shall  we  say  that  religion  arose 
through  an  awareness  of  something  which  man  found  first  within 
himself — his  soul  or  his  will — and  later  projected  into  the  world? 
Or  shall  we  say  that  religion  takes  its  rise  from  man's  awareness 
of  and  participation  in  something  objective  and  inclusive  and  that 
only  later  does  he  discover  himself,  through  a  process  of  separation 
and  analysis?  This  is  precisely  the  issue  as  to  how  far  the  theory 
of  animism  will  take  us  in  understanding  the  beginnings  of  the 
religious  tradition.  For  animism  is  a  theory  of  projection  from  con- 
sciousness to  nature,  from  internal  to  external.  Dissatisfaction  with 
the  adequacy  of  animism  has  its  deepest  roots  in  the  belief  that  the 
current  runs  in  the  other  direction,  from  outer  to  inner,  from  a  whole 
to  the  parts,  from  reality  to  consciousness.  This  alternative  concep- 
tion has  received  no  single  name.  It  has  been  spoken  of  as  totemism. 
It  underlies  the  "zoism"  of  Mr.  Cook,  the  "animatism"  of  Mr. 
Marett,  the  "naturism"  of  Mr.  Clodd.5 

There  are  three  features  of  the  theory  of  animism  which  I  shall 
here  comment  upon,  chiefly  in  the  light  of  these  larger  issues  which 
they  suggest.  I  shall  then  consider  some  of  the  more  fruitful  sug- 
gestions which  have  been  offered  to  supplement  the  deficiencies  of 
animism.  Animism  is  a  theory  of  projection  from  inner  to  outer, 
it  is  predominately  intellectualistic,  and  it  sees  the  essence  of  religion 
in  an  illusory  anthropomorphism. 

It  would  seem  to  be  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  about 
self-consciousness  and  its  development  to  suppose  that  early  man 
is  but  slightly  introspective,  scarcely,  if  at  all,  a  discoverer  and 
observer  of  his  own  will  and  soul.  More  specifically  would  it  appear 
that  what  he  first"  wakes  up  to  is  his  group,  his  living,  social  environ- 
ment. I  quote  Miss  Harrison's  summary  of  the  matter,  which  may 

5Cf.  J.  E.  Harrison:  "Themis,"  p.  475,  note  i. 

[  46  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

stand,  I  think,  quite  apart  from  any  question  concerning  the  value 
of  many  of  her  specific  observations  and  hypotheses  in  archeology 
and  anthropology.  "First,  primitive  man,  submerged  in  his  own  re- 
actions and  activities,  does  not  clearly  distinguish  himself  as  subject 
from  the  objects  to  which  he  reacts,  and  therefore  he  is  but  slightly 
conscious  of  his  own  separate  soul  and  hence  no  power  to  project 
it  into  'animated  nature/  He  is  conscious  of  life,  of  mana,  but  not 
of  individual  spirits;  .  .  .  second,  man  felt  himself  at  first  not  as 
a  personality  separate  from  other  persons,  but  as  the  warm  excited 
center  of  a  group;  language  tells  us  what  we  have  already  learnt 
from  ritual,  that  the  'soul'  of  primitive  man  is  'congregationalized/ 
the  collective  daimon  is  before  the  individual  ghost,  and  still  more 
he  is  before  the  Olympian  God.'56  What  deserves  to  be  stressed  here 
is  the  presence  in  man's  consciousness  of  a  massive  totality,  of  a 
world  of  life  and  of  force,  something  utterly  objective,  before  there 
is  any  discovery  of  his  own  consciousness.  His  self  and  the  contents 
of  his  own  mind  are  discovered,  when  they  are,  upon  the  background 
of  this  "other-than-himself"  which  is  there  first.  This  "other-than- 
himself "  is  not,  of  course,  the  equivalent  of  any  such  objective  nature 
as  comes  readily  to  our  own  minds;  it  quivers  with  life,  it  is  that 
to  which  his  emotions  and  instinctive  desires  and  activities  are 
attached,  rather  than  the  correlate  of  an  intellectual  idea.  His 
thought  is  neither  personal  nor  impersonal,  rather  is  it  'social,'  if 
we  may  divest  this  word  of  some  of  its  acquired  connotations.  To 
call  attention  thus  to  the  centripetal  direction  of  early  man's  con- 
scious development,  to  start  with  his  instinctive  awareness  of  that 
which  is  objective  and  outer,  and  to  build  upon  that  rather  than 
upon  what  is  isolated  and  detached  affords  concrete  verification  of 
Royce's  statement  that  "this  whole  customary  popular  and  philo- 
sophical opposition  between  a  man's  self-consciousness,  as  if  it  were 
something  primitive  and  lonely,  and  his  social  consciousness,  as  if 
that  were  something  acquired,  apart  from  his  self-consciousness, 
through  intercourse  with  his  fellows  is  false  to  human  nature."7 

Anthropologists  and  social  psychologists,  such  as  Marett,  Miss 
Harrison,  Durkheim  and  his  followers  have  presented  this  matter 

6  "Themis,"  p.  475. 

7  "Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,"  p.  201. 

[  47  1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

in  the  light  of  certain  empirical  evidence  which  seems  to  point  in 
this  direction.  But  the  question  can  hardly  be  settled  wholly  by  an 
appeal  to  anthropological  data.  Nor  is  the  question  solely  or  chiefly 
one  of  time  sequence,  the  question  as  to  whether  the  awareness  of 
something  objective  and  real  precedes  or  follows  the  apprehension 
of  ideas  as  within  one's  mind  and  detached  both  from  reality  and 
from  one's  group.  The  available  data  may,  perhaps,  be  interpreted 
either  in  terms  of  animism  or  of  totemism,  though  the  material  which 
is  presented  by  the  critics  of  animism  is  impressive  and  convincing. 
But  the  issue  can,  in  the  end,  be  met  only  in  the  light  of  larger 
philosophical  conceptions  and  analyses. 

A  second  comment  upon  the  theory  of  animism  is  that  it  operates 
with  categories  and  does  its  thinking  with  a  certain  intellectualistic 
bias.  The  theory  of  animism  has  supposed  that  religion  could  be 
viewed  as  essentially  the  outcome  of  a  belief  in  ghostlike  beings 
conceived  and  projected  into  nature  in  order  to  explain  the  myste- 
ries of  sleep  and  dreams,  of  life  and  death.  Now  among  the  serious 
critics  of  the  theory  of  animism  there  is,  I  think,  no  thought  of  deny- 
ing to  early  man  all  recognition  of  mystery  and  some  attempt  to 
render  intelligible  the  strange  and  persistent  phenomena  which 
greeted  him  on  all  sides.  But  to  say  that  this  felt  need  of  explaining, 
this  intellectual  curiosity  is  the  sole  or  the  chief  source  of  early 
man's  belief  in  supernatural  beings  is  a  different  matter.  There  are 
some  important  considerations  which  are  overlooked  in  such  an 
account,  chief  of  which  is  the  undoubted  fact  that  ideas  are,  in  some 
manner,  correlated  with  behavior.  Practice  precedes  theory,  invol- 
untary and  instinctive  behavior  precedes  ideational  and  voluntary 
behavior,  ritual  precedes  dogma  and  intellectual  belief.  Royce 
generalizes  this  situation  in  saying  that  "reason,  like  every  state  of 
intelligence,  is  simply  the  coming  to  consciousness  of  some  mode 
of  action."8  We  are  to  look  then  for  something  which  precedes 
animism,  something  which  is  of  the  nature  of  behavior  and  of  in- 
stinct. At  least  we  may  say  that  the  earliest  ideas  which  are  found 
in  man's  religion  will  not  be  completely  intelligible  unless  they  are 
seen  in  their  relation  to  these  prior  activities.  Once  having  emerged 
these  ideas  may  well  take  on  new  functions;  they  may  have  a  mean- 

8  "Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,"  p.  373- 

[  48   ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

ing  which  not  only  points  back  to  the  instinctive  behavior  of  which 
they  are  the  deposit,  but  which  gropes  forward  as  well,  seeking  some 
genuine  object  which  is  real.  But  even  so,  we  shall  expect  them  to 
carry  along  something  of  their  early  inheritance.  Sense  organs,  we 
have  observed,  stand  at  the  boundary  between  the  organism  and  its 
environment,  interpreting  the  requirements  of  the  world  to  the  life 
needs  of  the  organism.  May  it  not  also  be  said  that  ideas  stand  at  the 
boundary  of  past  and  future,  pointing  both  to  the  behavior  which 
lies  behind  and  the  ideal  meanings  which  beckon  from  ahead?  Not 
everything  is  told  about  ideas  and  beliefs  when  we  conceive  them 
simply  as  projected  forth  from  instinctive  behavior.  But  we  may 
not  forget  ritual  as  perhaps  the  stuff  out  of  which  are  made  "those 
faded  unaccomplished  actions  and  desires  which  we  call  gods."9 
Here  is  at  least  a  capital  truth  which  leads  to  some  modification  of 
traditional  animism  and  of  much  else  besides.10 

The  intellectualistic  bias  of  animism  results  in  another  difficulty 
which  is  noticed  by  Durkheim.  Even  if  we  grant  that  the  impulse 
to  explain  and  to  make  intelligible  the  mysterious  phenomena  of  life 
led  early  man  to  the  idea  of  the  double,  the  anima,  it  is  not  at  all 
evident  why  this  idea  should  have  attaching  to  it  the  quality  and  the 
feeling  tone  of  sacredness.  It  is  this  quality  which  makes  the  anima 
an  object  of  fear,  awe  and  worship.  An  idea  which  arises  solely  as  the 
result  of  an  intellectual  necessity  will  not  show  this  quality.  Some 
deeper  level  of  emotion  and  of  desire  must  be  tapped  in  order  that 
the  idea  of  the  sacred,  which  is  the  dominant  and  the  organizing 
concept  of  religion,  shall  emerge. 

But  there  is  a  third  implication  of  the  theory  of  animism,  the  most 
serious  of  all.  If  we  are  to  see  the  chief  root  of  religion  in  the  impulse 
of  man's  mind  to  banish  mystery  through  explaining  it,  and  if  the 
explanation  in  terms  of  phantoms  and  doubles  be  founded  on  illusion, 
as  it  surely  is,  the  inference  is  obvious.  Religion  is  essentially  but 
false  science,  and  nothing  else.  But  religion  is  implicated  in  so  very 

9  Harrison :  "Ancient  Art  and  Ritual,"  p.  54. 

10  "That  ritual,  or  in  other  words,  a  routine  of  external  forms,  is  historically  prior 
to  dogma,  was  proclaimed  years  ago  by  Robertson  Smith  and  others.  Yet  social 
anthropology  is  but  today  beginning  to  appreciate  the  psychological  implications  of 
this  cardinal  truth."  Marett:  "The  Birth  ofJKimility,"  p.  13. 

[  49  ]    - 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

much  of  the  total  complex  of  life's  interests  that  such  a  judgment 
must  appear  so  radically  over-simple  as  to  be  false.  Durkheim's 
judgment  is  worth  recording  here,  especially  when  one  remembers 
that  he  comes  to  the  investigation  of  religion  from  the  school  of 
French  positivism.  "It  is  inadmissible,"  he  says,  "that  systems  of 
ideas  like  religions,  which  have  held  so  considerable  a  place  in  his- 
tory, and  to  which,  in  all  times,  men  have  come  to  receive  the  energy 
which  they  must  have  to  live,  should  be  made  up  of  a  tissue  of  illu- 
sions. To-day  we  are  beginning  to  realize  that  law,  morals  and  even 
scientific  thought  itself  were  born  of  religion,  were  for  a  long  time 
confounded  with  it,  and  have  remained  penetrated  with  its  spirit. 
How  could  a  vain  fantasy  have  been  able  to  fashion  the  human 
consciousness  so  strongly  and  so  durably?"1 

In  these  comments  upon  the  concept  of  animism  and  its  applica- 
tion to  the  early  religion  of  men,  we  have  had  no  thought  of  any 
wholesale  distrust  and  rejection  of  reason  and  intelligence.  Nor  are 
we  denying  the  actuality  and  the  importance  of  the  soul  idea  in  prim- 
itive habits  of  thought.  We  have  wished  to  say  that  the  theory  of 
animism  is  not  able  adequately  to  set  forth  the  relation  between  the 
inner  and  the  outer,  the  immanent  and  the  cognitive  aspects  of  the 
early  stages  of  the  religious  tradition,  and  that  much  depends  on  our 
being  able  to  do  this. 

And,  indeed,  recent  studies  of  primitive  religion  have  evidenced 
an  increasing  discontent  with  the  traditional  view  which  sees  in 
man's  early  religion  chiefly  the  product  of  an  illusory  anthropo- 
morphism due  either  to  false  inductive  processes  or  to  what  Max 
Mliller  called  a  "disease  of  language."  We  may  now,  I  think,  say 
with  some  measure  of  confidence  that  whatever  else  primitive 
religion  may  have  been,  it  was  more  and  other  than  any  simple  belief 
in  ghostlike  beings  conceived  in  order  to  explain  the  mysteries  of  life 
and  of  nature,  the  phenomena  of  sleep  and  dreams  and  death. 
Religion  preceded  such  naive  animism,  just  as  it  has  outlived  it. 
Where  then  shall  we  look  for  the  central  core  of  primitive  religion? 
Robertson  Smith's  "Religion  of  the  Semites"  opened  the  way  to  a 
different  interpretation.  He  emphasized  as  the  fundamental  concep- 
tion of  ancient  religion  the  "solidarity  of  the  gods  and  of  their  wor- 

11  Durkheim :  ibid.,  p.  69. 

[  So  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

shippers  as  part  of  one  organic  society."12  This  vital  sense  and 
emotion  of  social  solidarity,  which  was  also  cosmic  in  its  scope  and 
intent,  received  its  typical  and  supreme  expression  in  the  common 
sacrificial  meal,  where  the  community,  men  and  gods  alike,  partook 
of  one  food,  one  life.  More  recently  Durkheim  and  his  school  have 
pointed  out  that  even  such  a  conception  as  that  of  Smith  is  too  indi- 
vidualistic and  too  animistic.  There  are  not  at  the  outset  men  and 
gods;  there  is  rather  only  the  social  group,  and  the  collective  emo- 
tions and  representations  which  are  generated  through  membership 
in  the  group.  Let  us  expand  this  main  thesis  of  Durkheim  and  report 
its  chief  constituents.  There  are  two  fundamental  things  to  be  noted: 
First,  the  essential  ingredient  of  all  religious  ideas  and  rites  is  to  be 
found  in  the  distinction  which  such  ideas  and  rites  set  forth  or  imply; 
the  distinction,  namely,  between  the  sacred  and  the  profane.  "The 
division  of  the  world  into  two  comprehensive  domains,  the  one  com- 
prising all  that  which  is  sacred,  the  other  all  that  is  profane — such 
is  the  distinctive  trait  of  religious  thought;  beliefs,  myths,  dogmas, 
legends  are  either  representations  or  systems  of  representations 
which  express  the  nature  of  sacred  things,  the  virtues  and  powers 
which  are  their  attributes,  their  history,  their  relations  with  one 
another  and  with  profane  things."  "Rites  are  rules  of  conduct  which 
prescribe  how  man  ought  to  behave  with  respect  to  sacred  objects."13 
There  is  thus  an  ineradicable  dualism  at  the  very  birth  of  religion. 
Religion  is  man's  expression  of  the  discovery  of  a  cleavage  between 
that  which  is  ordinary  and  common  and  that  which  is  charged  with 
mystery  and  sacredness.  But  this  merely  restates  the  problem.  What 
is  it  in  man's  experience  which  compels  him  so  to  split  up  his  uni- 
verse? What  is  the  source  of  the  concept  of  the  sacred  itself?  Durk- 
heim's  answer  is  that  social  experience  alone  can  evoke  the  sentiment 
of  the  sacred.  It  is  as  a  member  of  the  mass  life,  when  the  individual 
is  no  longer  merely  himself,  but  lives  and  feels  the  larger  emotions 
surging  around  and  through  him; it  is  through  this  social  experience 
that  he  is  transported  to  a  level  of  existence  which  is  beyond  the 
common  and  the  ordinary,  which  is  divine.  That  social  experience 
may  intensify  and  transmute  individual  feeling  is  of  course  a  famil- 

12  "The  Religion  of  the  Semites,"  p.  32. 

13  Durkheim :  "Les  Formes  elementaires,"  pp.  50,  56. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

iar  fact.  "The  laws  of  the  multiplication  of  human  power  by  associ- 
ation have  never  been  worked  out;  but  no  one  has  failed  to  measure 
in  frequent  experiences  what  incredible  enhancement  of  the  value 
of  any  experience  may  occur  in  a  single  touch  of  endorsement  from 
without/'14  and  it  is  this  enhancement  of  individual  feeling  through 
social  experience  which  enabled  Carlyle  to  speak  of  society  as  the 
"standing  wonder  of  our  existence,  a  true  region  of  the  supernatural," 
in  which  "man  has  joined  himself  with  man;  soul  acts  and  reacts  on 
soul;  a  mystic  unfathomable  union  establishes  itself;  Life  in  all  its 
elements  has  become  intensated,  consecrated."15 

Durkheim  applies  familiar  facts  of  our  experience  to  the  question 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  the  sacred.  The  life  of  primitive 
man  seems  subject  to  a  rhythm  in  which  there  alternate  periods  of 
dispersion,  when  his  life  is  ordinary,  monotonous,  and  common,  and 
periods  of  concentration,  of  social  excitement,  of  contact  which 
heightens  the  intensity  and  range  of  feeling  and  generates  that  which 
is  inspired  and  sacred.  Here  are  literally  two  worlds  which  the  indi- 
vidual experiences — a  world  of  sense  experience  where  economic  and 
physical  activities  predominate,  and  a  world  which  makes  itself  felt 
during  those  periods  of  social  "effervescence,"  when  one  immediately 
participates  in  a  larger  and  different  world  through  his  social  experi- 
ences, his  group,  or  collective  consciousness.  It  is  a  qualitatively  new 
experience  as  well  as  one  which  is  more  overwhelming  and  intense. 
Here  are  then  two  outstanding  facts  to  be  kept  in  mind  in  interpret- 
ing the  religion  of  primitive  man.  There  is  first  the  concept,  or  better, 
the  emotion,  the  "collective  representation"  of  something  sacred,  of 
something  removed  from  the  common,  and  of  supreme  importance 
for  human  weal  and  woe.  Here  is  a  supernaturalism  which  is  prior  to 
animism,  a  religion  prior  to  objective  or  personal  gods.  And  secondly, 
this  representation  of  the  sacred,  this  theoplasm  and  matrix  of  all 
religion,  is  the  deposit  of  collective  feeling,  of  social  experience.  "Not 
only  does  the  god  reflect  the  thoughts,  social  conditions,  morality, 
and  the  like,  but  in  its  origin  his  substance  when  analyzed  turns  out 
to  be  just  nothing  but  the  representation,  the  utterance,  the  emphasis 


14  Hocking:  "The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,"  p.  222. 

15  "Characteristics,"  Works,  vol.  I,  p.  340. 

[  s*  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

of  these  imaginations,  these  emotions,  arising  out  of  particular  social 
conditions."16 

There  follow  from  these  two  fundamental  facts  about  primitive 
religion,  certain  derivative  characteristics  which  must  be  briefly 
noticed.  Here  at  its  source,  religion  is  the  felt  participation  of  the 
individual  in  a  collective  consciousness  which  is  super-individual, 
yet  continuous  with  the  individual  consciousness.  Here  is  a  "reser- 
voir," to  use  an  expression  of  Cornford,  to  which  the  individual  has 
access  through  religious  rites,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  both  utter  and 
in  turn  intensify  the  group  emotions.  The  vehicle  of  group  emotion, 
the  source  and  stuff  of  that  which  was  sacred  and  supernatural,  was 
no  personal  god  or  spirit,  but  an  impersonal  mana,  wakonda,  which 
is  spoken  of  variously  as  a  "sympathetic  continuum,"  a  "primitive 
magical  complex,"  a  "system  of  sanctities  which  knew  no  Gods,"  a 
"social  force  trembling  on  the  very  verge  of  Godhead."  Everything 
which  primitive  man  does  and  thinks — the  chase  and  the  warpath, 
the  social  relationships  of  marriage  and  kinship,  his  practices  con- 
cerning birth,  death,  and  burial,  his  magic  and  his  art — are  all 
charged  with  and  rendered  potent  and  awe-inspiring  by  this  one  per- 
vasive and  continuous  Power,  this  mana.  Its  influence  spreads  every- 
where, infecting  with  fear  and  awe  the  entire  range  of  his  world.  If 
its  more  positive  and  wholesome  aspect  is  expressed  in  his  religious 
rites  and  feelings — wholesome  because  under  social  control — its 
more  negative  and  fearsome  side  is  found  in  the  darker  practices  of 
his  magic  and  his  taboos,  where  the  dread  power  has  broken  away 
from  the  more  regular  and  social  control  of  the  group  emotions. 

But  primitive  religion  is  not  merely  an  utterance  of  man's  social 
experience,  as  we  understand  the  term  "social."  This  felt  continuum 
of  life  and  force  which  is  the  original  stuff  of  all  gods  and  the  source 
of  all  spiritual  substance,  is  not  merely  the  bond  which  unites  man  to 
man  in  a  common  group  life;  it  also  unites  the  entire  social  group  to 
nature  so  that  both  man  and  nature  participate  in  one  common  life. 
It  is  impossible  to  say  where  the  social  and  the  human  end,  and  where 
begins  the  mere  awareness  of  natural  objects.  The  totemic  group 
includes  both  man  and  his  natural  environment  in  unbroken  unity. 
Both  man  and  nature  participate  in  one  common  felt  life.  Here  is  a 

16  "Themis,"  p.  28. 

[  S3] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

whole  of  life  and  nature,  which  as  yet  is  unbroken,  which  is  not  yet 
disturbed  by  analysis  and  reflection,  self -consciousness  and  individu- 
alism. The  collective  representation  which  feels  and  thinks  this 
entire  situation  is  governed  by  what  M.  Levy-Bruhl  has  designated 
the  "Law  of  Participation."  Because  of  the  pervasive  influence  of  the 
supernatural  Power,  the  feeling  and  representation  of  which  gener- 
ates religion,  there  is  a  "mystic  identity"  between  objects.  Men 
actually  are  animals,  the  new-born  infant  actually  is  both  the 
ancestor  of  the  clan  and  the  totem  of  the  clan.  According  to  this  law, 
"objects  can  be  at  once  themselves  and  other  than  themselves."17 
Experience  is  interpreted  in  the  light  of  this  prepossession;  the  law 
itself  is  "impermeable  to  experience" — until  indeed  this  prelogical 
stage  of  human  thinking  gives  way  to  the  stage  of  a  more  logical  and 
analytical  thinking.  Thus,  man's  social  experience,  his  collective 
emotions  and  representations  have  at  the  outset  a  more  than  human 
significance;  they  are  cosmic  and  metaphysical  in  their  scope  and 
intent. 

There  is  one  further  fact  about  early  religion  which  these  writers 
emphasize.  It  is,  they  hold,  a  legitimate  inference  from  the  available 
facts.  Religion  can  now  be  interpreted  as  something  that  in  its 
essence  is  not  illusory,  precisely  because  man's  social  experience  is 
not  an  illusion.  "We  are  able  to  say,  in  sum,  that  the  religious  indi- 
vidual does  not  deceive  himself  when  he  believes  in  the  existence  of 
a  moral  power  upon  which  he  depends  and  from  which  he  holds  the 
larger  portion  of  himself.  That  power  exists;  it  is  society.  When  the 
Australian  is  carried  in  transport  beyond  himself,  when  he  feels 
within  himself  the  surging  of  a  life  whose  intensity  surprises  him,  he 
is  the  dupe  of  no  illusion;  that  exaltation  is  real,  and  it  is  really  the 
product  of  forces  that  are  external  and  superior  to  the  individual."18 

Such  is  the  account  of  primitive  religion  and  of  the  origin  of  the 
mystery  god  which  Durkheim  and  his  followers  give.  Miss  Harrison 
summarizes  the  matter  thus : 

"Totemism  then  is  not  so  much  a  special  social  structure  as  a  stage 
in  epistemology.  It  is  the  reflection  of  a  very  primitive  fashion  in 
thinking,  or  rather  feeling,  the  universe,  a  feeling  the  realization  of 

17  Levy-Bruhl :  "Les  Fonctions  mentales  dans  les  societes  inferieures,"  p.  77. 

18  Durkheim,  p.  322. 

[  54  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

which  is  essential  to  any  understanding  of  primitive  religion.  It  is  not 
a  particular  blunder  and  confusion  made  by  certain  ignorant  savages, 
but  a  phase  or  stage  of  collective  thinking  through  which  the  human 
mind  is  bound  to  pass.  Its  basis  is  group  unity,  aggregation,  similar- 
ity, sympathy,  a  sense  of  common  group-life,  and  this  sense  of 
common  life,  this  participation,  this  unity,  is  extended  to  the  non- 
human  world  in  a  way  which  our  modern,  individualistic  reason, 
based  on  observed  distinctions,  finds  almost  unthinkable."19 

But,  within  the  religious  tradition,  there  are  motives  and  attitudes 
which  are  different  from  those  which  find  utterance  in  the  religion  of 
participation  and  of  mysticism.  The  primitive  fusion  of  the  human 
social  group  with  its  environment,  nature,  does  not  endure.  Instead 
of  solidarity  and  participation  in  one  vital  continuum,  there  is  dis- 
tance and  remoteness  of  man  from  his  gods.  The  gods  emerge  as 
beings  who  live  a  life  of  their  own.  Man  does  not  share  that  life  in  his 
feelings  and  his  experience  of  group  solidarity;  instead  of  feeling,  it 
is  some  articulate  idea  and  thought  which  is  uppermost  in  this  other 
religious  attitude.  In  order  to  set  forth  somewhat  concretely  the  con- 
trast between  these  two  motives  within  the  religious  tradition,  we 
may  refer  to  Miss  Harrison's  account  of  the  relation  between  mystery 
god  and  Olympian  god.  It  is  as  a  study  of  human  motives  and  of 
their  interplay  within  the  life  of  religion  that  "Themis"  here  inter- 
ests us.  If  one  distrusts  the  soundness  of  the  author's  use  of  archeo- 
logical  and  anthropological  material,  one  may  be  reminded  that  her 
main  historical  thesis — the  development  of  the  Olympians  from 
earlier  mystery  gods — can  always  be  translated  back  into  the  lan- 
guage of  psychology.  As  such  the  thesis  may  surely  be  defended  on 
the  basis  of  the  accepted  principle  that  "the  further  we  go  back  the 
nearer  we  approach  to  a  total  presentation  having  the  character  of 
one  general  continuum  in  which  differences  are  latent."20 

We  may  then  pass  briefly  in  review  certains  respects  in  which  the 
Olympian  gods  differ  from  the  mystery  gods,  viewing  the  matter 
simply  as  an  illustration  of  the  relation  between  the  motive  of  par- 
ticipation and  what  we  may  call  the  motive  of  contemplation.  There 
is  a  further  advantage  in  reporting  the  matter  as  it  is  presented  in 

19  "Themis,"  p.  122. 

20  Ward:  Article  Psychology  in  "Encyclopedia  Britannica." 

[  55  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Miss  Harrison's  "Themis."  The  author  holds  to  the  view  that  the 
development  from  mystery  god  to  Olympian  god  was  essentially 
one  of  loss,  so  far  as  any  genuine  religious  value  is  concerned.  She 
is  a  vigorous  partisan  of  "participation"  and  of  mysticism.  Certain 
of  the  enduring  problems  touching  the  interpretation  of  religion  are 
brought  to  our  notice  as  a  result  of  this  point  of  view. 

First,  the  Olympians  emerge  only  when  all  sacredness  and  divinity 
are  excluded  from  nature.  The  primitive  totemic  unity,  the  "sym- 
pathetic continuum"  between  the  social  group  and  natural  objects, 
in  which,  as  yet,  there  is  no  external  god,  becomes  broken.  Divinity 
is  now  remote,  not  near;  the  immediate  natural  surroundings  of 
men  no  longer  are  pervaded  with  mystery  and  life,  but  become 
common  objects,  the  domain  of  scientific  analysis  and  practical 
utilities.  The  direct  evidence  for  this,  according  to  Miss  Harrison, 
is  that  the  "Olympian  sheds  his  plant  or  animal  form."21  He  grad- 
ually shifts  from  a  nature  god,  instinct  with  the  life  and  emotions 
which  pulse  through  nature  and  the  social  group  continuous  with 
her,  to  a  human-nature  god.  And  this  process  is  essentially  one  of 
loss,  so  far  as  religious  values  are  concerned.  The  characteristics  of 
the  Olympian  human-nature  god  are  mainly  negative,  the  result  of 
stripping  off,  through  analysis  and  reflection,  those  vital  charac- 
teristics which  ever  made  the  mystery  god  so  near  and  so  pregnant 
with  meaning  and  value.  The  mystery  gods,  on  the  other  hand, 
retain  a  strange  beauty  and  charm  and  appeal  to  the  very  end.  They 
"are  never  free  of  totemistic  hauntings,  never  quite  shed  their  plant 
and  animal  shapes.  That  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  their  sacramental 
worship.  They  are  still  alive  with  the  life-blood  of  all  living  things 
from  which  they  sprang."22 

Second,  the  Olympians  cease  to  be  either  the  symbols  or  the  pro- 
jections of  a  group  soul.  They  no  longer  have,  as  an  intimate  part 
of  their  very  substance,  a  community  following,  a  thiasos;  they  are 
no  longer  a  many-in-one,  but  solitary  individuals.  In  the  "Hymn  of 
the  Kouretes,"  whose  elucidation  furnishes  the  theme  of  Miss 
Harrison's  "Themis,"  the  Kouros,  the  young  Zeus,  is  hailed  as 
coming  at  the  head  of  his  attendants,  his  daimones.  Zeus  then  once 

21  "Themis,"  p.  447- 

22  Ibid.,  p.  450. 

[    56   ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

had  a  thiasos,  a  following,  a  social  group  which  attended  him.  "When 
he  grew  up  to  be  the  Father,  it  seems,  he  lost  his  thiasos  and  has 
gone  about  unattended  ever  since.  If  we  can  once  seize  the  meaning 
of  this  thiasos  and  its  relation  to  the  god,  we  shall  have  gone  far  to 
understand  the  making  of  Greek  mythology."23  And  the  meaning 
ascribed  to  the  thiasos  by  the  school  whose  teachings  we  are  now 
considering  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fundamental  thesis  that  religion 
is  to  be  interpreted  wholly  in  terms  of  man's  social  experience.  The 
Kouros,  the  young  god,  is  only  the  projection  of  the  Kouretes; 
Dionysos  is  "but  his  thiasos  incarnate."  The  Kouretes,  a  band  of 
youths  about  to  be  initiated,  dance  an  excited  mimetic  dance.  They 
thus  utter  together  their  feelings,  their  delight  and  terror,  their 
desires.  And  "being  a  collective  emotion,  it  is  necessarily  felt  as 
something  more  than  the  experience  of  the  individual,  as  some- 
thing dominant  and  external.  .  .  .  They  sink  their  own  person- 
ality .  .  .  ,  they  become  emotionally  one,  a  true  congregation, 
not  a  collection  of  individuals.  The  emotion  they  feel  collectively, 
the  thing  that  is  more  than  any  individual  emotion,  they  externalize, 
project;  it  is  the  raw  material  of  god-head.  Primitive  gods  are  to 
a  large  extent  collective  enthusiasms,  uttered,  formulated."24  And 
just  so  long  as  the  bond  between  the  thiasos  and  the  god  remains 
intact,  so  long  as  the  worshippers  feel  the  intimacy  which  makes 
themselves  and  their  god  partakers  of  one  Life,  participating  in  a 
common  substance,  just  so  long  is  the  god  a  genuine  god,  a  true 
mystery  god.  But  when  the  thiasos,  the  social  group  of  worshippers, 
no  longer  participates  in  the  life  of  the  god,  the  god  becomes  a  soli- 
tary individual,  remote  and  aloof,  majestic  it  may  be,  but  no  longer 
the  incarnation  of  man's  deepest  emotions  and  desires.  Such  are  the 
Olympians.  They  are  "the  last  product  of  rationalism,  of  individual- 
istic thinking;  the  thiasos  has  projected  them  utterly.  Cut  off  from 
the  very  source  of  their  life  and  being,  the  emotion  of  the  thiasos, 
they  desiccate  and  die.  Dionysos  with  his  thiasos  is  still  Comus,  still 
trails  behind  him  the  glory  of  the  old  group  ecstasy."25 

Third,  the  Olympians  cease  to  perform  the  functions  of  the  older 

23  "Themis,"  p.  447. 

24  Ibid.,  pp.  45-46. 

25  Ibid.,  p.  48- 

[   57   ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

divinities,  and  demand  instead  that  honor  and  service  be  rendered 
to  them  as  superior  personalities.  The  older  gods,  akin  to  the 
mystery  gods,  were  without  distinct  title,  ready  to  take  on  plant 
or  animal  shape,  symbols  of  functions  and  activities  performed, 
sharing  in  the  life  and  labor  both  of  man  and  of  nature.  But  the 
Olympian  renounces  all  of  this;  "instead  of  being  himself  a  sacra- 
ment he  demands  a  sacrifice."26  The  inherent  democracy  of  mysti- 
cism, of  participation  on  the  part  of  worshipper  and  god  alike,  in 
a  common  life  and  in  common  tasks,  is  replaced  by  the  aristocratic 
and  dualistic  severance  between  the  god  who  receives  and  men  who 
give  him  honor  and  service.  Gift-sacrifice,  externality,  formalism, 
are  substituted  for  intimacy  and  felt  unity,  remoteness  for  partici- 
pation. When  the  matter  is  thus  presented  almost  every  motive 
which  appeals  to  us  makes  us  condemn  the  Olympians  as  sterile  and 
fruitless.  "Sentiment,  tradition,  may  keep  up  the  custom  of  gift- 
sacrifice  for  a  while,  but  the  gods  to  whom  the  worshipper's  real 
heart  and  life  goes  out  are  the  gods  who  work  and  live,  not  those 
who  dwell  at  ease  in  Olympos."27 

Fourth,  one  function  which  the  mystery  god  performed  for  his 
worshippers  was  all-important.  He  not  only  lived  and  worked  for 
them;  he  died  for  them  as  well.  But  the  Olympian  is  immortal; 
this  is  his  chief  claim  to  distinction  and  remoteness  from  man,  and 
also  it  is  "the  crowning  disability  and  curse  of  the  new  theological 
order."28 

He  gains  deathlessness  and  immutability,  and  he  thinks  thereby 
to  gain  life;  but  the  life  he  wins  is  only  a  "seeming  immortality 
which  is  really  the  denial  of  life,  for  life  is  change."29  And  this  is 
part  of  a  further  paradox.  The  Olympian,  we  have  noted,  becomes 
completely  human  through  ceasing  to  be  a  part  of  nature,  through 
renouncing  every  plant  and  animal  form,  whatever  is  merely  natural 
and  non-human.  But  in  thus  being  humanized,  he  loses  the  one 
supreme  characteristic  of  human  life,  its  change  and  mortality. 
The  Olympian  ceases  to  be  both  human  and  divine,  and  becomes 

26  "Themis,"  p.  467. 

27  Ibid.,  p.  467. 

28  Ibid.,  p.  467. 

29  Ibid.,  p.  468. 

[    58   ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

divine  alone.  Men  may  now  contemplate  his  beauty  and  perfection, 
but  he  is  no  longer  such  as  men  are;  he  no  longer  can  sympathize 
with  and  participate  in  the  human  struggle.  Hence  the  powerful 
appeal  which  the  later  mystery  religions  made  to  human  need  and 
feeling.  It  is  not  "to  the  bright  Olympians  who  know  naught  of 
struggle  and  pain  and  death,  but  to  gods  who  have  shared  these 
experiences,  who  have  triumphed  over  death  and  risen  to  new  life, 
that  the  hope  of  immortality  attaches  itself;  for  in  their  victory  is 
the  evidence  that  death  can  be  overcome,  and  their  example  shows 
the  way."80 

In  short,  we  see  illustrated  throughout  the  contrast  between  par- 
ticipation and  contemplation,  feeling  and  idea,  mysticism  and 
rationalism.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this  seeming  diversity  and  con- 
flict, both  the  motives  of  participation  and  of  contemplation  must 
be  counted  among  the  energies  of  religion  and  within  the  tradition 
of  religion.  This  will  become  clear  in  the  next  chapter.  It  is  to  be 
noted  here  that  a  third  component  in  the  life  of  religion,  in  all  its 
higher  forms,  depends  for  its  emergence  and  its  existence  upon  this 
very  tension  between  participation  and  contemplation,  the  imme- 
diate and  the  more  remote.  I  mean  that  which  can  only  be  called 
the  knowledge  of  and  devotion  to  the  Good.  This  is  that  ethical  and 
moral  passion  which  claims  its  rightful  place  alongside  of  partici- 
pation and  contemplation  within  the  religious  tradition.  And  what 
we  may  surely  say  is  that  the  very  absence  of  the  immediacy  of 
participation,  the  remoteness  of  man  and  gods  which  contemplation 
signifies,  are  the  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  long  process 
whereby  man  learns  to  distinguish  between  what  is  near,  close  at 
hand,  immediate,  and  what  is  good,  what  is  the  ideal  and  the  goal 
of  his  destiny.  The  Olympian  remoteness  and  contemplation  are 
both  an  accompaniment  of  this  moral  process  and  they  aid  and 
stimulate  it  as  well.  And  this  is  the  moral  process.  The  moral  con- 
sciousness can  emerge  and  can  play  its  part  in  human  life  only  as 
the  primitive  mysticism  of  participation  breaks  up,  in  order  that 
some  quality  of  contemplation  may  emerge.  Perhaps  at  some  further 
stage  of  religion,  participation  may  reappear  on  a  higher  level, 
higher  because  of  what  it  has  learned  from  contemplation  and  the 

30  Moore :  "The  History  of  Religions,"  p.  444. 

[  59  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

moral  consciousness.  The  development  of  the  Olympian  tradition 
was,  then,  not  loss  chiefly,  not  an  "intellectual  backwater/'  but  a 
necessary  part  of  religion,  contributing  something  of  positive  worth 
to  the  whole  process.  The  distinction  is  a  real  one  between  the  natu- 
ral and  the  ethical  religions.  As  long  as  man's  life  blends  with  that 
of  nature  in  one  felt  unity,  as  long  as  that  social  and  natural  mysti- 
cism prevails,  which  characterizes  the  totemism  of  early  religion, 
man  will  not  dream  of  possessing  or  achieving  an  ideal  good,  freed 
from  the  irrational  limitations  of  feeling  and  caprice.  Both  the  social 
group  and  the  nature  continuous  with  it  must  cease  to  satisfy  before 
man  can  seek  or  find  a  God  who  is  also  good. 

That  the  Olympians  came  to  represent  and  sanction  moral  ideals 
cannot  be  doubted.  Imaginative  playthings,  objects  of  art,  abstract 
intellectual  conceptions,  they  may  well  have  been,  but  the  moral 
function  is  there  too,  and  it  is  sufficient  to  save  the  serious  and  the 
religious  character  of  the  Olympians.  The  best  proof  of  this  is  fur- 
nished by  a  study  of  the  cult  titles  used  in  prayer  and  sacrifice.  An 
exhaustive  account  of  these  is  given  by  Mr.  Farnell,  in  his  "Cults 
of  the  Greek  State."  Social,  political,  and  ethical  designations  of  the 
functions  of  the  great  Olympians  are  found  in  abundance;  indeed 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  they  predominate.  The  Olympians, 
when  worshipped  under  these  ethical  cult  titles,  were  no  objets  d'art, 
yet  they  were,  to  be  sure,  objects  of  contemplation.  But  to  contem- 
plate a  distant  being  or  object  is  not  of  necessity  mere  idle  play  of 
the  esthetic  imagination,  though  it  may  become  this.  There  is  a  moral 
vision  of  some  ideal  perfection,  contemplated  from  afar,  not  par- 
ticipated in,  and  from  such  contemplation  may  come  added  zest 
and  significance. 

Moreover,  it  is  contemplation  which  becomes  the  spokesman  and 
the  vehicle  of  the  cognitive  worth  and  meaning  of  our  deeper  human 
experiences,  and  which  bears  witness  to  the  presence  of  some  total 
environment  within  which  human  life  is  lived.  Wholly  to  exclude 
contemplation  from  the  religious  tradition  is  to  fall  back  on  the 
assumption  that  the  immediacies  of  felt  experience  are  self-sufficing, 
able  to  sustain  and  to  guarantee  all  of  the  values  of  life;  that  what- 
ever is  not  to  be  thus  possessed  and  participated  in,  whatever  is  a 
distant  object  of  mere  knowledge  and  contemplation,  is  pale  and 

[  60  ] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

shadowy,  inert  and  fruitless.  But  that  the  religious  consciousness 
which  has  uttered  itself  in  the  historical  religions  fits  in  with  this 
assumption,  whether  true  or  false,  cannot  be  admitted  for  a  moment. 
Examine  the  religious  consciousness  and  go  back  once  more  to  its 
totemistic  origins,  as  Durkheim  and  his  followers  would  have  us  do. 
Here  is,  we  have  seen,  the  felt  unity  both  of  a  human  group  and  of 
some  province  of  nature.  Both  "pools,"  as  Mr.  Cornford  calls  them, 
the  human  pool  and  the  nature  pool,  are  at  the  outset,  continuous 
with  each  other,  so  that  there  is  felt  to  be,  in  truth,  but  one  group. 
Because  everything  belongs  to  the  one  felt  group,  the  one  "sympa- 
thetic continuum,"  every  region  of  the  group  participates  in  every 
other  region. 

Here,  then,  is  no  dualism,  no  externality,  no  contemplation.  And 
yet  that  which  is  later  to  become  simply  the  human  world  even  now 
really  has  its  environment,  its  background;  and  this  awareness  of 
the  environment,  of  some  genuine  whole  of  things,  makes  this 
primitive  consciousness  religious  in  addition  to  being  social.  The 
religious  moment  within  this  primitive  feeling  relates  to  the  specifi- 
cally human  group.  Totemism  is,  in  brief,  religious,  because  the 
feeling  to  which  the  totemic  system  gives  birth  is  more  than  mere 
feeling;  it  is  something  cognitive,  it  bears  witness  to  a  background 
and  an  environment.  Now  it  is  the  function  of  the  Olympians,  as 
of  all  such  gods  who  express  the  motive  of  contemplation  rather 
than  participation,  that  they  keep  alive  this  knowledge  side  of  reli- 
gion, this  reference  to  some  background  of  things  precisely  not 
here  and  now  experienced  and  participated  in.  They  are  symbols 
of  a  distant  city  of  God,  a  Platonic  Realm  of  Ideas,  the  thought  of 
which,  even  if  only  in  sheer  imagination,  can  alone  lend  stability 
and  significance.  Thus  can  the  Olympians  be  spoken  of,  in  a  splendid 
phrase,  as  "the  symbols  of  eternity  and  calm  in  a  transient  and 
troubled  world."31 

It  is  this  interest  in  the  discovery,  the  recognition,  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  that  which  is  both  real  and  also  pertinent  to  the  deepest 
values  disclosed  within  human  experience,  it  is  this  which  con- 
stitutes the  heart  of  the  religious  tradition.  A  reference  to  the  rela- 
tion between  religion  and  magic  suggests  much  which  confirms  this 

31  J.  Adam:  "The  Religious  Teachers  of  Greece,"  p.  117. 

[  61  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

thesis.  Both  religion  and  magic  relate  to  some  over-world;  both  deal 
with  some  order  of  things  which  is  felt  to  be  sacred.  But  they  spring 
from  two  different  attitudes  and  interests.  Magic  grows  out  of  that 
interest  which  man  has  in  seeking  to  control,  to  manipulate  the 
sacred,  and  thereby  to  get  something  that  he  wants.  The  sacred  is 
here  an  instrument  and  a  means  to  be  used  in  the  fulfilment  of 
desire.  But  the  religious  attitude  is  different.  It  comes  to  exist  as 
something  other  than  magic,  because  man  discovers  that  there  are 
structures  in  his  world  whose  worth  lies  not  in  their  being  used  and 
controlled,  but  in  their  being  recognized,  possessed  in  imagination 
and  in  idea,  and  worshipped.  Whenever  it  was,  in  the  development 
of  human  life,  that  these  two  attitudes  began  to  diverge — the  atti- 
tudes of  pragmatic  control  and  of  non-pragmatic  contemplation— 
at  that  moment  religion,  as  an  energy  distinct  from  magic,  was  born. 
Marett  has  urged,  as  against  Frazer,  that  the  magical  act  is 
inter-personal,  a  transaction  between  wills.  The  spell  of  magic,  as 
against  the  prayer  of  religion,  is  a  "spiritual  projectile"  from  one 
will  to  another.  Frazer,  it  will  be  recalled,  had  argued  that  magic 
is  allied  with  science,  through  the  fundamental  fact  that  both  of 
them  are  concerned  with  wholly  impersonal  situations,  that  "in 
both  of  them  the  succession  of  events  is  perfectly  regular  and  cer- 
tain, being  determined  by  immutable  laws,  the  operation  of  which 
can  be  foreseen  and  calculated  precisely."32  May  it  not  be  true  that 
the  magical  act  and  the  magical  relation  can  occur  within  either 
a  personal  or  an  impersonal  situation,  and  that  it  depends  pri- 
marily upon  the  human  attitude  and  interest  which  it  serves  rather 
than  upon  the  type  of  situation  within  which  it  moves?  No  doubt 
there  have  been  and  there  still  are  plenty  of  occasions  in  which 
"religion"  attempts  to  utilize  and  to  control  its  gods.  And  these  very 
terms,  use,  control,  instrument,  are  ambiguous.  You  may  possess 
a  "use"  for  me  when  I  merely  converse  with  you  and  seek  to  share 
your  ideas,  perhaps  greater  than  when  I  try  to  "use"  you  as  a  means 
for  the  furtherance  of  my  interests.  But  it  is  surely  perverse  to 
define  religion  as  Leuba  does,  as  "that  part  of  human  experience 
in  which  man  feels  himself  in  relation  with  powers  of  psychic 

82  Cf.  the  discussion  in  Marett:  "From  Spell  to  Prayer"  in  "The  Threshold  of  Reli- 
gion," and  in  Frazer:  "The  Golden  Bough,"  ch.  4. 

r  62 1 


THE  RELIGIOUS  TRADITION 

nature,  usually  personal  powers,  and  makes  use  of  them."33  This 
is  not  religion  but  magic  because  of  the  pragmatic  and  utilitarian 
interest  and  attitude  which  are  here  at  work.  The  attitude  of  reli- 
gion is  not  this.  Religion  connotes  man's  interest  in  particirjating  in, 
and  in  possessing  ,  through  feeling^or  through  any_of  the  varied 

energies  of  his  life,  structures  which  he  neither  makes  nor  controls, 
.*?  .  ^--~  ..-.    —  •  —  ~  —  t  -  —       ~-  --   _.  .  .      j 

but^whichJie  recognizes  and  enjoys,  loves  and  worshigs.  Are  there 
such  structures?  C^_is^7;e;^JnJterest_of  hfe_a  pragmatic  interest?, 
The  answer  of  the  religious  tradition  is,  in  any  case,  unambiguous. 
That  tradition  arises,  not  primarily  tjinjogh  a  projection  outward 
of_what  jnan  finds  wltfainjiimseif  ,  solitary^  and  isolated,  but_through 
aj^ppropriation  lifjtjiat  which  he  nnds_surrounding  him,  of  that 
within  whicETie"liyes_  and  acts.  Religion  is,  at  bottom^  simply  Jt 
^-  spoEegmarTfor  tEe^  interest  and  the  Tatfflude  wherein  man  possesses 
in^EIistiyje-^n.  significant  structuresT  TEe  manner 


of  juch_possession  as  well  as  the  natunToT  that  in~which  man 
lieves  himself  to  participate  isjno^ng_changeless.  Yet  the  attitude 
and  theTiuman  interest  remain,  a  permanent  manifestation  of  the 
life  of  reason  and  the  vocation  of  man. 

33Leuba:  "A  Psychological  Study  of  Religion,"  p.  52. 


[  63  ] 


CHAPTER  IV 
PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

^TN  seeking  to  lay  bare  the  essential  thing  in  the  religious  tradi- 
tion, we  have  stressed  the  objective  reference  of  the  mind's 
major  interests.  Either  through  contemplation  or  participation 
or  indeed  through  his  very  activity,  man  is  linked  to  an  outer 
-A.  order  which  is  real;  the  play  of  his  deepest  energies  is  cogni- 
tive as  well  as  human.  If  an  insight  and  conviction  of  this  nature 
constitute  the  burden  of  the  religious  tradition,  and  if  anything 
within  that  tradition  has  found  utterance  within  the  teachings  of 
philosophical  idealism,  as  we  have  supposed,  then  we  should  be 
able  to  understand  better  the  way  in  which  man's  mind  does  possess 
an  objective  reference,  if  we  examine  some  accredited  exposition 
of  idealism.  To  this  end,  I  propose  in  this  chapter  to  make  some 
study  of  Platonism.  Also,  we  should  expect  that  in  the  religion  best 
known  to  us,  and  which  has  exercised  most  influence  upon  western 
civilization,  this  same  aspect  of  objective  reference  and  possession 
would  take  on  a  form  peculiarly  rich  and  significant.  Such  is  indeed 
the  case.  We  shall  in  this  chapter  study  also,  then,  some  aspects  of 
Christianity,  and  we  shall  notice  certain  comparisons  between  these 
two  mighty  syntheses  of  life  and  of  ideas.  It  is  just  the  knowledge 
side  of  these  two  historical  forces  which  will  interest  us  here.  We 
shall  ask,  what  is  it  that  the  mind  of  man  is  really  in  possession  of, 
to  what  objective  structures  do  his  conscious  energies  make  refer- 
ence, and  how  is  this  solidarity  between  the  mind  and  reality  set 
forth  in  these  two  cases?  Platonism  and  Christianity  are  indeed  the 
two  chief  formative  elements  of  men's  thought  and  life  down  to  the 
emergence  of  whatever  forces  we  may  choose  to  regard  as  dis- 
tinctively modern.  And  our  situation  and  our  problems  are  what 
they  are  through  the  interaction  of  these  various  energies. 

Within  the  structure  of  Platonism  there  is  one  dominant  motive 

[  65  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

and  idea.  It  is  the  conviction  that  significant  forms  and  structures, 
appealing  to  the  eye,  the  imagination,  and  the  reason  of  man,  lie 
embedded  within  the  world  which  surrounds  him.  The  vocation  of 
man  is  to  uncover  these  forms  of  beauty  and  of  intelligence,  and 
to  dwell  among  them.  This  constitutes  for  Plato,  and  also  for  Aris- 
totle, a  philosophical  conviction.  But  it  is  to  be  found  as  well  in  the 
Greek  temper  itself,  in  the  attitude  of  the  Greek  mind  to  nature  and 
to  human  life.  Spontaneous  and  plastic  throughout,  stamping  its 
mould  upon  all  the  gifts  of  Hellas  to  civilization,  this  attitude  is 
reflectively  voiced  in  the  philosophical  imagination  of  Plato  and 
of  Aristotle. 

I  have  used  the  term  "significant  structure"  to  designate  those 
Forms  which  the  mind  is  to  discover  and  to  possess.  A  significant 
structure,  a  Platonic  Idea,  is  both  wholly  formed  and  articulate  and 
it  is  also  the  embodiment  of  meaning.  It  is  both  a  structure,  utterly 
real,  and  also  pertinent  to  the  nature  and  interests  of  the  mind 
whose  function  it  is  to  envisage  it  in  impassioned  contemplation. 
It  is  these  significant  structures,  real  and  eternal,  which  draw  the 
mind  to  themselves  and  endow  the  mind  with  a  divine  wonder  and 
love. 

Let  us  view  some  of  the  more  concrete  illustrations  of  this  central 
Platonic  insight.  Consider  first  the  literal  meaning  and  the  connota- 
tion of  that  term  which  is  perhaps  the  master  term  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy and  certainly  of  Plato's  thought,  the  term  idea.  This  word, 
derived  from  the  root  of  the  verb  iSe!i>,  to  see,  cognate  with  the 
Latin,  video,  from  which  comes  our  English  vision,  means  literally 
that  which  is  seen,  outward  appearance,  form,  shape.  From  this 
primitive  and  literal  sense,  its  meaning  grows  in  a  twofold  direction. 
It  comes  to  designate  that  which,  when  seen,  is  the  source  of 
esthetic  joy.  It  thus  means  not  only  visible  shape,  but  beauty  as 
well.  In  Homer,  the  word  is  already  used  to  mean  simply  beauty.1 
But  it  comes  to  mean  not  only  that  which  delights  the  sense  of 
esthetic  joy,  but  whatever  possesses  order,  measure  or  rhythm, 
whatever  is  a  genuine  structure,  of  such  a  nature  that  the  mind  bent 
upon  knowledge  can  delight  and  terminate  in  it.  Thus,  the  Pythago- 
reans apply  the  term  to  those  geometrical  figures  which  they  con- 

1  "Odyssey,"  Book  17. 

[  66] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

ceive  to  be  the  ultimate  elements  of  reality;  the  Empedoclean  hot 
and  cold,  wet  and  dry  are  in  one  treatise  at  least,  spoken  of  as  ideas 
(eiSfj  ),2  and  the  materialist,  Democritus,  can  apply  to  his  atoms 
the  term  ideas.  And  the  Platonic,  or  shall  we  say  the  Socratic,  Idea, 
what  is  it  but  a  structure  possessing  the  maximum  of  articulate 
significance,  both  utterly  real  and  intelligible,  and  awaiting  to  be 
known  and  greeted  by  the  mind?  Whether  we  think  of  the  Platonic 
intelligible  Forms  as  existing  by  themselves  apart,  in  a  world  of 
pure  Forms,  or  whether  we  suppose  them  to  be  articulate  structures 
or  laws  which  the  mind  can  discern  within  the  world  of  nature's 
processes,  makes,  in  this  regard,  little  difference.  The  commanding 
features  of  the  Platonic  Idea  are  these  two:  first,  the  concept  stands 
for  realities  apprehended  and  not  at  all  for  any  way  of  apprehending 
or  mode  of  apprehension.  And  secondly,  the  Platonic  Idea  is  an 
object  of  thought,  and  not  of  sense  experience,  because  it  possesses 
true  permanence  and  stability,  and  is  not  a  process  in  time.  These 
two  more  fully  developed  meanings  of  the  term  Idea  never,  for 
Plato,  completely  fall  asunder.  Any  articulate  structure  is,  in  so  far, 
a  thing  of  beauty,  and  that  which  delights  the  esthetic  vision  is  also 
a  type  of  intellectual  order.  The  business  of  mind  it  is  to  unveil 
these  objects  of  esthetic  and  intellectual  0ew/na,  contemplation, 
strip  them  of  all  that  blurs  the  clarity  of  their  form  and  outline,  of 
all  non-being,  and  then  to  possess  them  in  imagination  and  in 
thought. 

Platonism  is,  then,  the  reasoned  outcome  of  a  certain  objectivity 
of  attitude,  a  constant  reference  of  the  mind  to  those  objective 
meaningful  Forms  which  constitute  the  true  center  of  gravity  of  all 
that  we  call  conscious,  and  that  we  tend  to  regard  as  belonging 
primarily  to  the  inner  life.  This  is  the  gist  of  that  pervasive  char- 
acteristic of  Platonic  philosophy,  and  of  the  Greek  mind,  which  we 
must  try  in  many  ways  to  body  forth,  if  we  would  apprehend  it 
fairly,  because  our  usual  habits  of  thought  about  mind  and  per- 
sonality are  quite  different.  Zeller,  in  characterizing  this  situation 
as  a  whole,  speaks  of  a  "plastiche  Ruhe,"  a  "reine  Objektivitat," 

2  Cf.  the  note  on  p.  88,  Burnet :  "Greek  Philosophy,"  and  the  article  Idea  in  Hast- 
ings' "Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics." 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

an  "ungebrochenen  Einheit  des  Geistigen  und  des  natiirlichen."3 
The  mind  of  man  is  throughout,  in  his  knowledge,  his  conduct,  and 
his  love,  a  bundle  of  objective  activities;  not  his  inner  conscious- 
ness, but  the  beautiful  and  intelligible  Forms,  the  orderly  structures 
of  nature  and  of  the  state  constitute  the  true  center  of  reference  for 
all  that  the  mind  finds  within  itself.4 

This  linkage  of  the  mind  to  outer,  significant  structures  may  be 
thought  of  in  more  than  one  way.  Each  energy  of  the  mind,  knowl- 
edge, feeling,  love,  volition,  affirms  in  its  own  way  its  allegiance  to 
the  Ideas.  Two  of  these  ways  may  here  be  especially  noted.  They 
center  around  the  concepts  of  Imitation  and  Participation.  The 
mind's  ideas  are  to  imitate  the  eternal  objective  patterns.  The  lan- 
guage of  imitation  connotes  a  dualism,  and  a  copy  or  correspond- 
ence conception  of  knowledge.  Ideas  within  the  mind,  if  they  are 
to  be  true,  are  to  portray  and  to  imitate  those  Forms  which  are  the 
standards  for  our  knowledge.  This  concept  and  vocabulary  of  imita- 
tion is  used  throughout  the  dialogues.  But  there  is  a  more  radical 
way  of  being  in  earnest  with  this  entire  motive  of  objectivity.  We 
shall  then  say,  not  so  much  that  the  mind  imitates  the  objective 
Forms  which  remain  distant  and  remote  from  them,  but  rather  that 
the  mind  overcomes  that  very  distance,  participates  in  the  very  being 
of  that  which  the  mind  knows,  and  even,  it  may  be,  becomes  identi- 
cal with  the  true  objects  of  its  knowledge.  The  more  the  objective 
and  significant  structure  is  viewed  as  the  real  center  of  reference 
of  the  mind's  ideas,  the  less  dualistic  shall  our  theory  become,  and 
the  more  will  imitation  of  the  real  object  pass  over  into  assimilation 
with  the  object.  The  language  of  participation,  then,  is  more  faithful 
to  this  objectivity  of  attitude  than  is  the  language  of  imitation. 
Plato  passes  freely  from  the  one  concept  to  the  other,  and  he  devotes 
a  dialogue,  the  Parmenides,  to  a  formal  study  of  the  logic  of  imita- 
tion and  of  participation,  which  becomes  there  the  problem  of  the 

3  Zeller:  "Philosophic  des  Griechen,"  vol.  i,  p.  126. 

4  It  is  this  objectivity  which  Santayana  has  described  in  these  words :  "Perhaps  the 
deepest  assumption  of  classic  philosophy  is  that  nature  and  the  gods  on  the  one 
hand  and  man  on  the  other,  both  have  a  fixed  character;  that  there  is  consequently 
a  necessary  piety,  a  true  philosophy,  a  standard  happiness,  a  normal  art."  "The  New 
Republic,"  August  21,  1915. 

[  68  ] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

one  and  the  many.  In  the  eighth  book  of  the  "Republic/'  where 
Plato  eloquently  portrays  the  ideal  of  the  true  philosopher,  the 
impassioned  outgoing  of  the  mind  to  those  eternal  Forms  which  con- 
stitute its  true  environment  is  set  forth  in  the  language  of  both 
these  functions,  and  I  quote  it  in  Jowett's  translation: 

"For  he,  Adeimantus,  whose  mind  is  fixed  upon  true  being  has 
no  time  to  look  down  upon  the  affairs  of  men,  or  to  be  filled  with 
jealousy  and  enmity  in  the  struggle  against  them;  his  eye  is  ever 
directed  towards  fixed  and  immutable  principles,  which  he  sees 
neither  injuring  nor  injured  by  one  another,  but  all  in  order  moving 
according  to  reason;  these  he  imitates,  and  to  these  he  would,  as 
far  as  he  can,  conform  himself.  Can  a  man  help  imitating  that  with 
which  he  holds  reverential  converse  ? 

"Impossible. 

"And  the  philosopher  also,  conversing  with  the  divine  and  immu- 
table, becomes  a  part  of  that  divine  and  immutable  order,  as  far  as 
nature  allows."5 

Surely  the  concept  of  imitation  and  its  accompanying  dualism  is 
less  radical  and  profound  than  the  concept  of  participation  and 
identity.  The  more  the  mind  participates  in  the  being  of  these  eter- 
nal Forms,  the  more  does  it  reach  its  goal  and  fulfill  its  function. 
That  objective  reference  is  never  wholly  absent  in  the  life  of  ideas 
and  of  consciousness.  To  the  vision  of  the  philosopher  and  the  lover 
of  beauty,  it  becomes  wholly  explicit.  Perhaps  we  may  say  that 
there  is  within  any  philosophical  realism  a  distinct  tendency  for  a 
dualistic,  representative  theory  of  knowledge  to  develop  into  a  more 
monistic  realism  according  to  which  the  idea  which  knows  is,  in 
some  fashion,  assimilated  with  the  reality  which  is  known.  This 
could,  I  believe,  be  shown  not  only  in  the  case  of  Plato  and  of  Aris- 
totle, but  also  in  the  Scholastics,  in  Spinoza,  and  in  certain  forms 
of  contemporary  realism.  The  language  of  sheer  imitation  is  less 
adequate  than  that  of  participation  again,  in  that  it  gives  the  sug- 
gestion of  too  great  a  passivity,  an  inert  yielding  to  the  outer  Forms 
and  objects.  The  point  to  stress  is  not  so  much  such  passivity,  but 
the  objectivity  of  the  mind's  ideas.  There  is  for  Plato  and  for  Aris- 
totle an  abundance  of  impassioned  activity  on  the  part  of  ideas  to 

5  "Republic,"  500  D. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

fulfill  their  destiny,  to  go  out  to  the  Forms  of  true  being,  and  par- 
ticipate in  them.  Such  a  caution  is  necessary,  I  think,  in  reading 
Windelband's  summary  of  the  dominant  temper  of  the  Greek  atti- 
tude. "The  limitations  of  the  ancient  Greek  consciousness,"  he  says, 
"lay  in  the  fact  that  it  thought  of  itself  only  and  wholly  as  recep- 
tive, as  a  mirror  before  which  must  be  presented  both  the  highest 
and  the  lowest  objects  in  the  world,  ideas  as  well  as  sensations."6 

As  a  means  of  understanding  better  what  is  involved  in  this  ob- 
jective reference  so  essential  to  the  entire  life  of  consciousness,  we 
may  look  for  a  moment  to  Aristotle's  conception  of  mind.  For 
Aristotle,  mind  is  an  assimilation  and  a  possession  of  that  which 
ttie  world  holds  out  to  it,  and  in  a  twofold  sense.  Mind  looks  in  two 
directions,  and  finds  on  both  sides  material  for  its  knowledge  and 
its  contemplation.  From  below,  mind  expresses  but  the  life  of  the 
body;  it  is  continuous  with  the  vegetative  and  animal  functions  of 
the  organism.  But  from  above  the  mind  appropriates  the  pure  Forms 
which  for  Aristotle  no  less  than  for  Plato  are  permanent  significant 
structures  constituting  the  genuine  fabric  of  reality,  and  furnishing 
the  higher  nature  of  the  mind  with  all  its  content.  It  is  the  first  of 
these  two  aspects  which  gives  to  Aristotle's  theory  of  the  soul  some- 
thing more  than  the  semblance  of  a  naturalism  which  sounds  modern 
and  points  straight  in  the  direction  of  behaviorism.  Consciousness 
is,  viewed  thus  from  below,  but  a  voice  and  language  in  which  the 
life  of  the  body  utters  itself,  bespeaks  its  own  nature  and  its  own 
interests.  The  mind  echoes  the  thrills  of  the  living  body.  The  mind 
is  the  body's  entelechy,  a  mirror  in  which  are  reflected  physiological 
events,  mechanisms  of  brain  and  of  muscle.  The  mind  shall  be  the 
spokesman  for  those  organic  and  external  structures  which  condition 
it,  the  screen  upon  which  are  projected  the  interests  of  just  those 
structures.  If,  in  Aristotle,  the  naturalistic  consequences  of  this 
point  of  view  are  in  abeyance,  it  is  because  Aristotle  still  thinks  of 
the  bodily  organism  in  terms  of  teleology,  as  the  achievement  of  a 
significant  Form,  rather  than  in  terms  of  a  mechanical  physiology. 
But,  more  important,  for  Aristotle,  the  mind  is  not  only  the  expres- 
sion of  the  form  of  the  body;  in  its  rational  capacity  it  appropriates 

6  Windelband :  "Kulturphilosophie  und  Transcendentaler  Idealismus,"  Logos,  vol. 
i,  p.  194. 

[  70] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

and  expresses  the  intelligible  nature  of  reality  itself.  The  structures 
which  enter  into  its  own  being  are  borrowed  from  "above"  as  well 
as  from  "below."  It  is  through  the  contemplation  of  these  Forms 
which  in  the  end  are  still  the  Ideas  of  Plato,  though  realized  within 
matter,  that  the  mind  is  divine  and  is  active.  But  in  this  very 
activity,  the  mind  is  still  made  up  wholly  of  what  it  has  received; 
the  mind  is  identical  with  the  objects  and  forms  which  it  possesses 
so  that  the  activity  seems  really  to  belong  on  the  side  of  the  objects 
apprehended,  the  significant  structures  which  are  real,  rather  than 
on  the  side  of  any  "active"  spiritual  substance.7  The  result  is,  then, 
that  both  in  the  case  of  the  mind's  utterance  of  bodily  functions 
from  below,  and  of  the  Platonic  intelligible  structures  from  above, 
mind  tends  to  become  identical  with  the  objects  which  it  expresses. 
In  such  a  world  mind  is  itself  a  Form  or  rather  it  is  potentially  all 
Forms;  its  life  and  interests  are  assimilated  to  the  significant 
structures  which  are  the  true  objects  of  its  knowledge.  "And  thought 
thinks  itself  because  it  shares  the  nature  of  the  object  of  thought; 
for  it  becomes  an  object  of  thought  in  coming  into  contact  with  and 
thinking  its  objects,  so  that  thought  and  object  of  thought  are  the 
same."8  In  a  philosophy  such  as  that  of  Plato  and  of  Aristotle, 
thought  can  afford  to  be  identical  with  its  objects  vastly  better  than 
in  a  philosophy  of  naturalism  in  which  the  objects  of  thought,  the 
entities  found  by  mind  as  real,  are  no  longer  significant  structures, 
forms  embodying  meaning,  but  facts  drawn  from  the  lower  levels 
of  experience,  sensation  and  perception,  and  held  together  solely 
by  the  play  of  mechanical  forces.  There  is  no  occasion  to  minimize 

7Cf.  the  following  passages  in  Ch.  Werner:  "Aristote  et  L'idealisme  Platoni- 
cien,"  p.  165:  "On  doit  reconnaitre,  tout  d'abord,  qu'Aristote  semble  refuser  a  la 
pensee  le  caractere  qui  est  par  excellence  le  caractere  distinctif  de  1'esprit:  1'activite. 
Le  pensee,  selon  lui,  exprime  1'activite  de  1'objet,  bien  plutot  que  1'activite  du  sujet. 
Ou,  du  moins — car  nous  verrons  qu'Aristote  entend  faire  une  place  a  1'activite  du 
sujet — la  pensee  resulte  d'une  action  exercee  par  Pobjet  sur  le  sujet."  Also,  p.  190: 
"Nous  savons  maintenant  dans  quel  sens  il  faut  entendre  la  comparison  institute  par 
Aristote  entre  1'activite  de  1'esprit  et  le  mouvement.  Si  1'activite  de  1'esprit  s'oppose  au 
mouvement  comme  1'energie  achevee  s'oppose  a  1'energie  inachevee;  si,  d'autre  part,  le 
mouvement  n'est  une  energie  inachevee  que  parce  qu'il  est  une  forme  inachevee,  quelle 
conclusion  tirer,  sinon  que  1'activite  de  1'esprit  est  identique  avec  la  forme?  Le  mouve- 
ment est  la  forme  inachevee.  L'activite  de  I'esprit  est  la  forme  achevee." 

8  Aristotle :  "Metaphysics,"  translated  by  W.  D.  Ross,  A  1072  b. 

[  71  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

the  vast  difference  between  Greek  realism  and  that  modern  realism 
which  is  the  outcome  of  natural  science.  For  both  realisms,  mind 
is  to  be  the  possessor  of  that  which  it  finds  in  its  world.  But  the 
Greek  genius  believed  itself  everywhere  to  discover  significant 
structures,  divine  forms;  the  reason  and  order  which  the  mind 
sought  were  already  real,  awaiting  appropriation  and  possession  by 
the  soul  of  man. 

Here  in  this  objectivity  of  attitude  is  the  source  of  that  difference 
between  the  sense  of  those  earliest  of  all  arguments  for  theism,  in 
the  Philebus,  the  Phaedo  and  the  tenth  book  of  the  Laws,  and  the 
sense  of  such  modern  arguments  as  use  the  same  language.  To  say, 
as  Plato  does,  that  the  universe  is  not  left  to  the  guidance  of  an 
irrational  and  random  chance,  but  is  "ordered  and  governed  by  a 
marvellous  intelligence  and  wisdom"  is,  for  the  Greeks,  not  so  much 
to  emphasize  a  mind  that  actively  orders,  but  rather  the  presence 
within  the  world  of  rhythm  and  of  order  instead  of  caprice  and  of 
chance.  Mr.  Webb  has  reminded  us  that  among  the  ancients  it  was 
the  scientists  who  were  the  theists.9  They  are  the  discoverers  and 
explorers  of  orderly  structures,  and  the  reason  and  intelligence 
manifested  by  nature  are  identified  with  objective  orderliness  and 
significant  structures,  rather  than  with  a  consciousness  which  is 
formative  and  creative. 

This  pervasive  reference  of  the  mind  to  objective  structures 
occasions  perhaps  little  surprise  in  the  case  of  the  mind's  ideas,  and 
with  respect  to  the  function  of  knowledge.  For  knowledge,  of  course, 
is  just  that  interest  in  which  the  mind  is,  in  intention,  most  com- 
pletely self -forgetful  and  assimilated  to  something  not  itself.  But 
what  of  the  feelings  and  emotions,  love  and  goodness?  In  these 
regions,  too,  does  the  central  Platonic  insight  and  conviction  obtain, 
and  we  may  turn  briefly  to  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  love,  and  the 
Socratic-Platonic  thesis  concerning  the  nature  of  goodness.  We  may 
say,  I  think,  that  Plato's  conception  of  love  is  essentially  an  assimi- 
lation of  love  to  knowledge.  And  this  is  true  not  only  because  love 
is  a  passionate  movement  of  the  mind  in  which  it  is  attracted  by  the 
perfect  Forms,  the  significant  structures,  the  utterly  objective  and 
real  Ideas,  but  also,  and  chiefly,  because  of  one  characteristic  of 

9  C.  C.  J.  Webb :  "Studies  in  the  History  of  Natural  Theology." 

[  72  ] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

these  outer  structures.  They  are  universals  and  not  individuals.  So 
much  we  may  at  least  say.  How  much  more  this  involves  may  be 
doubtful,  but  that  for  Plato  and  for  Aristotle,  the  true  object  of 
all  adequate  knowledge  is  a  type,  a  law,  an  Idea,  a  universal  and 
nothing  individual  or  particular,  admits  of  no  doubt.  The  mind's 
interest  in  genuine  knowledge  leads  it  away  from  the  individual, 
the  contingent,  the  here  and  now,  and  compels  it  to  find  lodgment 
elsewhere.  The  individual  is  at  best  an  instance  and  an  illustration 
of  something  essential  and  universal.  Now  this  is  not  only,  for 
Plato,  a  description  of  the  interest  of  knowledge,  but  also  of  the 
activity  of  love,  and  that  in  a  profound  sense.  Both  the  philosopher 
and  the  lover  of  beauty  will  pierce  through  the  individual  and  will 
"hold  converse  with  the  true  beauty,  divine  and  simple."  In  that 
wonderful  speech  in  the  "Symposium"  which  is  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Diotima,  a  discourse  at  once  impassioned  and  restrained,  the  love 
of  beauty  and  its  pilgrim's  progress  is  described  in  language  which 
surely  is  the  language  of  science,  of  knowledge,  and  of  philosophy. 
I  think  no  apology  is  needed  for  quoting  the  passage  at  some  length. 

"I  will  do  my  utmost  to  inform  you,  and  do  you  follow  if  you 
can.  For  he  who  would  proceed  rightly  in  this  matter  should  begin 
in  youth  to  turn  to  beautiful  forms;  and  first,  if  his  instructor  guide 
him  rightly,  he  should  learn  to  love  one  such  form  only — out  of 
that  he  should  create  fair  thoughts;  and  soon  he  will  himself  per- 
ceive that  the  beauty  of  one  form  is  truly  related  to  the  beauty  of 
another;  and  then  if  beauty  in  general  is  his  pursuit,  how  foolish 
would  he  be  not  to  recognize  that  the  beauty  in  every  form  is  one 
and  the  same!  And  when  he  perceives  this  he  will  abate  his  violent 
love  of  the  one,  which  he  will  despise  and  deem  a  small  thing,  and 
will  become  a  lover  of  all  beautiful  forms;  this  will  lead  him  on  to 
consider  that  the  beauty  of  the  mind  is  more  honorable  than  the 
beauty  of  the  outward  form.  So  that  if  a  virtuous  soul  have  but  a 
little  comeliness,  he  will  be  content  to  love  and  tend  him  and  will 
search  out  and  bring  to  the  birth  thoughts  which  may  improve  the 
young,  until  his  beloved  is  compelled  to  contemplate  and  see  the 
beauty  of  institutions  and  laws,  and  understand  that  all  is  of  one 
kindred,  and  that  personal  beauty  is  only  a  trifle;  and  after  laws 

[  73  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

and  institutions  he  will  lead  him  on  to  the  sciences,  that  he  may  see 
their  beauty,  being  not  like  a  servant  in  love  with  the  beauty  of 
one  youth  or  man  or  institution,  himself  a  slave  mean  and  calcu- 
lating, but  looking  at  the  abundance  of  beauty  and  drawing  towards 
the  sea  of  beauty,  and  creating  and  beholding  many  fair  and  noble 
thoughts  and  notions  in  boundless  love  of  wisdom;  until  at  length 
he  grows  and  waxes  strong,  and  at  last  the  vision  is  revealed  to  him 
of  a  single  science,  which  is  the  science  of  beauty  everywhere.  .  .  . 
And  the  true  order  of  going  or  being  led  by  another  to  the  things 
of  love,  is  to  use  the  beauties  of  earth  as  steps  along  which  he  mounts 
upwards  for  the  sake  of  that  other  beauty,  going  from  one  to  two, 
and  from  two  to  all  fair  forms,  and  from  fair  forms  to  fair  actions, 
and  from  fair  actions  to  fair  notions,  until  from  fair  notions  he 
arrives  at  the  notion  of  absolute  beauty,  and  at  last  knows  what  the 
essence  of  beauty  is."10 

What,  we  may  well  ask,  is  really  being  set  forth  here?  Whoever 
reads  this  must  be  struck  by  the  vocabulary  of  knowledge,  of 
science.  Is  it  not  with  some  astonishment  that  one  comes  upon  the 
climax,  one  of  the  earlier  climaxes,  "until  at  length  he  grows  and 
waxes  strong,  and  at  last  the  vision  is  revealed  to  him  of  a  single 
science,  emcrnj///^,  which  is  the  science  of  beauty  everywhere"?  Not 
only  is  the  language  here  that  of  the  knowledge  process  and  the 
knowledge  interest,  but  the  substance  and  the  thought  as  well.  This 
is  certainly  not  the  same  thing  as  saying  that  every  esthetic  interest 
is  here  to  be  dissolved  away,  and  that  absolute  Beauty  is  but  a 
transparent  cloak  for  scientific  law,  for  the  very  concept  of  scien- 
tific law  itself,  for  "die  Gesetzesordnung,"  "das  Gesetz  der  Gesetz- 
lichkeit"  as  they  are  spoken  of  by  Natorp,  who,  I  think,  falls  into 
this  error  throughout.11  The  "Symposium"  is  a  dialogue  which  treats 
really  of  love  and  not  of  the  logic  of  scientific  method.  But  love  is  a 
passionate  outgoing  of  the  mind,  an  utter  devotion  to  universal  and 
essential  Forms.  It  is  the  theme  of  knowledge  set  forth  in  the  lan- 

10  "Symposium,"  p.  210. 

11  Natorp:  "Platos  Ideenlehre,"  p.  117.  Natorp  regards  Plato  merely  as  a  precursor 
of  Kant's  critical  philosophy,  or  rather,  of  certain  logical  and  methodological  doc- 
trines of  that  philosophy. 

[  74  ] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

guage  of  the  emotions,  but  this  is  withal  a  new  language  and  no  color- 
less medium.  Here  are,  then,  two  interests  of  the  mind  in  which  it 
confirms  the  promise  of  its  nature  and  yields  willingly  to  those 
universal  significant  structures  which  communicate  their  substance 
to  the  mind  which  knows  and  loves  them. 

But  there  is  still  a  third  function  and  interest  which  is  also  assim- 
ilated to  knowledge.  It  is  virtue,  goodness.  If  Plato  describes  love  in 
the  language  of  knowledge,  he  avows  openly  that  goodness  is  knowl- 
edge. We  largely  miss  the  purport  of  this  Socratic  thesis  if  we 
suppose  that  we  have  refuted  it  in  pointing  to  the  all  too  frequent 
failure  of  the  will  to  conform  to  the  better  insight  of  our  knowledge 
of  good  and  of  evil.  To  affirm  that  virtue  is  knowledge  is  a  striking 
way  of  saying  that  the  excellence  and  vocation  of  man's  mind  lies  in 
the  mind's  appropriation  and  possession  of  those  Forms,  of  that  order 
and  beauty  which  constitute  the  true  being  of  the  universe.  Not  free 
striving  or  creative  activity  but  the  appropriation  of  and  participation 
in  the  eternal  significant  structures  of  reality: 

There  let  me  gaze,  till  I  become 
In  soul  with  what  I  gaze  on,  wed. 

This  is  the  office  of  the  mind.  This  is  what  the  Socratic-Platonic  iden- 
tification of  goodness  and  knowledge  mean.  Goodness  consists  in  the 
fact  "that,  by  a  happy  infection  or  infusion,  more  of  the  essence  of 
the  universe  has  got  into  them,  i.e.,  into  good  men,  than  into  others; 
that  the  magnetic  wires  from  the  fount  of  real  ideas  pass  the  currents 
of  the  fair  and  good  with  peculiar  intensity  through  them,  and  evolve 
within  them  the  responsive  and  miniature  god.  What  is  praised  in 
them  is  thus  only  a  margin  or  local  extension  of  the  outer  ground  of 
the  universe."  To  use  these  words,  which  are  Martineau's,12  may  be 
to  overemphasize  somewhat  the  passivity  of  the  mind  in  its  relations 
to  the  objects  which  it  knows.  This  relation  is  one  of  participation  on 
the  side  of  the  mind,  no  less  than  one  of  "extension"  on  the  side  of 
its  objects.  But  the  important  thing  is  that  the  energy  of  will  is 
throughout  conceived  as  linked  to  and  assimilated  with  objective 
significant  structures. 

Before  leaving  this  account  of  the  way  in  which,  for  Plato  as  for 

12  J.  Martineau:  "Types  of  Ethical  Theory,"  vol.  i,  p.  n. 

[75] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Greek  thought  at  large,  the  mind's  ideas  are  linked  to  an  objective 
order,  I  would  make  two  remarks.  There  is,  first,  an  analogy  between 
this  objectivity  of  mind  and  its  ideas,  and  that  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  religious  tradition  which  lies  behind  animism,  and  which 
occupied  our  attention  in  the  last  chapter.  In  that  earlier  stage, 
"Totemism"  if  you  will,  men's  consciousness  is  conceived  as  partici- 
pating in  something  social  and  cosmic.  It  is  only  subsequently  that 
consciousness  finds  itself,  and  withdraws  from  its  world.  So  that  in 
the  development  of  the  religious  tradition  what  comes  first  is  not 
projection  from  within  outwards,  from  ideas  to  spirits  and  gods,  but 
possession  of  something  objective,  and  participation  in  it  precedes 
any  isolation  of  mind  and  of  consciousness.  What  occurs  in  the  way 
of  anthropomorphic  projection  can  occur  only  after  man  has  first 
sundered  himself  from  structures  which  he  originally  supposes  him- 
self to  possess.  So  it  is  here  with  Platonism.  Ideas  are  not  yet  so 
sharply  separated  from  objective  structures  as  they  are  later  on  to 
become.  They  do  not  as  yet  live  a  free  life  of  their  own.  They  are  the 
Forms,  the  entelechies  of  objective  structures,  inseparably  linked  to 
the  cosmic  Forms  which  serve  as  their  patterns  and  their  objects. 
This  is  why,  for  Plato,  every  function  and  interest  of  the  mind  must, 
in  the  end,  be  set  forth  as  a  cognitive  function.  For,  it  is  knowledge 
which  affirms  most  decisively  this  linkage  of  ideas  to  objects.  For  the 
knowledge  interest,  the  idea  in  the  mind  ought  to  be  quite  transpar- 
ent, so  that  not  it,  but  the  object  which  it  envisages  occupies  the 
focus  of  attention.  Platonism,  in  sum,  stands  for  that  stage  in  the 
development  of  reflective  thought  in  which  possession  and  partici- 
pation, the  awareness  of  totalities  and  significant  structures,  are  dom- 
inant, rather  than  self-conscious,  isolation  of  ideas  from  their  objects, 
and  projection  outwards  of  what  at  first  belongs  only  to  the  inner 
life.  Did  it  not  sound  bizarre,  and  if  Durkheim's  and  Miss  Harrison's 
sense  of  the  word  "Totemism"  were  more  prevalent,  we  could  indeed 
say  that  Platonism  corresponds  in  philosophy  to  "Totemism"  in 
religion. 

But  it  is  needful  to  add  at  once  a  certain  caution,  and  this  is  our 
second  remark.  From  what  we  have  been  saying  about  the  Platonic 
and  Greek  objectivity  of  attitude  it  does  not  follow  that,  for  Plato, 
the  idea  of  personality,  of  conscious  individuality  was  wholly  in 

1 76] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

abeyance,  that  "Plato  has  no  concept  of  Personality,  as  a  subject 
capable  of  will."13  It  is  one  thing  to  say  that,  for  Plato,  ideas  and 
self-conscious  personality  are  habitually  conceived  of  as  linked  to 
significant  structures  in  which  they  participate;  it  is  quite 'another 
thing  to  say  that  such  concepts  are  altogether  lacking.  Plato  surely 
has  heard  of  the  soul;  he  knows  about  feelings  and  volitions  and 
ideas.  But  this  entire  life  of  consciousness  has  its  center  of  gravity 
outside  itself  in  those  objective  significant  structures  to  which  is 
linked  every  content  of  consciousness — feelings  and  volitions  no 
less  than  ideas.  We  may  say,  if  we  like,  that  thus  to  view  the  matter 
is  of  necessity  to  compromise  the  autonomy  and  the  integrity  of  self- 
consciousness.  It  requires  effort,  indeed,  for  us  to  recover  in  imagi- 
nation this  objectivity  of  attitude  and  of  reference.  But,  having 
done  this  we  may  be  reminded  that  something  akin  to  this,  rather 
than  any  subjectivism  is  the  historical  fountain  head  of  idealism  in 
European  philosophy. 

If  now  we  agree  to  say  that  the  outstanding  philosophical  idea  in 
Platonism  is  the  attachment  of  ideas  to,  or  even  their  identity  with, 
the  significant  structures  which  they  know,  we  may  describe  the 
transition  from  Platonism  to  Christianity  thus.  Ideas,  and  I  mean 
now  not  Forms,  but  contents  of  consciousness,  lose  that  implicit 
objectivity  of  reference  to  significant  structures  which  they  know. 
Ideas  begin  rather  to  live  a  free  life  of  their  own.  They  migrate,  so 
to  speak,  from  the  outer  structures  of  the  cosmos  to  the  inner  life  of 
persons.  Instead  of  being  primarily  linked  to  outer  objects,  they  now 
become  attached  to  selves.  They  become,  or  they  are  on  the  way  of 
becoming,  modes  or  modifications  of  the  conscious  activity  of  per- 
sons. And  from  now  on,  as  long  as  religious  interests  and  concepts 
are  dominant,  as  they  are  till  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  souls  or 
selves  are  thought  of  as  constituting  the  inner  essence  of  the  whole 
cosmic  drama.  They  are  the  stuff  of  which  reality  is  made,  and  the 
inner  life  of  conscious  selves  is  the  true  home  of  mind  and  of  ideas. 

This  transformation,  not  only  of  philosophical  ideas,  but  of  the 
entire  cultural  situation  as  we  go  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  Augus- 
tine, Anselm,  and  Descartes  is  not  seldom  described  as  the  literal 

13  Quoted  from  K.  Hildenbrand  by  Kistiakowski :  "Gesellschaft  und  Einzelwesen," 
p.  7. 

[    77   ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

emergence  of  the  sense  of  personality.  It  is  perhaps  safer  to  speak  of 
a  deepening  of  that  idea  and  a  change  in  the  habitual  way  in  which 
mind  was  thought  of.  In  the  experience  and  thought  of  later  antiquity 
and  of  the  early  Christian  era  (I  quote  from  Mr.  Webb),  "a  develop- 
ment had  taken  place  in  the  sense  or  consciousness  of  individual 
personality,  as  a  result  of  which  individual  personality  had  come  to 
be  regarded  as  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  spiritual  being  in  a 
way  in  which  it  had  not  been  so  regarded  in  classical  antiquity."14 
Many  forces  contributed  to  this  freeing  of  ideas  from  their  attach- 
ment to  objects.  The  teachings  of  the  sophists,  the  political  fortunes 
of  a  world  in  which  traditional  structures  were  going  to  pieces,  and 
in  which  the  individual  was  turned  back  upon  the  resources  of  his 
inner  life,  and  chiefly,  the  positive  influence  of  the  new  religious 
teachings  and  experience,  all  of  these  forces  aided  in  dissolving  ideas 
away  from  their  solidarity  with  known  objects,  and  in  enriching  the 
kingdom  of  the  mind.  It  was  through  the  reflections  and  criticisms 
of  the  sophists  that  men  began  to  doubt  the  indubitable  power  of 
ideas  to  reveal  objective  realities  and  values.  But  these  men  who 
surmised  the  natural  forces  which  could  generate  ideas  from  below 
are,  we  feel,  essentially  modern.  They  sense  the  naturalistic  roots  of 
all  ideas,  the  dependence  of  all  our  ideas  and  valuings  upon  bodily 
and  social  matter-of-fact  forces.  But  their  work  was  essentially 
critical.  Like  the  social  and  political  forces  then  in  the  ascendent, 
they  contributed  to  the  dissolution  of  those  bonds  which  united  ideas 
to  intelligible  structures  in  reality.  They  had  less  concern  with  the 
discovery  or  the  creation  of  new  structures  which  might  serve  as 
objective  points  of  reference  for  the  mind's  interests  and  ideas.  But 
the  most  potent  of  those  historical  forces  which  drive  ideas,  as  it 

14  C.  C.  J.  Webb:  "Studies  in  the  History  of  Natural  Theology,"  p.  141.  The  fol- 
lowing may  also  be  quoted  from  Gierke:  "Moreover,  a  fugitive  glance  at  Medieval 
doctrine  suffices  to  perceive  how  throughout  it  all,  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  theories 
of  antiquity,  runs  the  thought  of  the  absolute  and  imperishable  value  of  the  indi- 
vidual; a  thought  revealed  by  Christianity."  "Political  Theories  of  the  Middle  Ages," 
translated  by  Maitland,  p.  81.  Also  from  Teichmiiller:  "Neue  Studien  zur  Geschichte 
der  Begriffe  III,"  p.  385 :  "Durch  die  Anerkennung  des  Individuellen  und  der  Person 
hat  das  Christentum  ein  der  ganzen  alten  Philosophic  fremdes  Princip  geltend  gemacht, 
und  dadurch  bekommen  alle  sonst  scheinbar  gleichen  Ideen  eine  neue  Bedeutung." 
Cf .  also  Teichmuller :  "Ueber  das  Wesen  der  Liebe,"  p.  78. 

[  78  ] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

were,  from  outer  intelligible  structures  to  the  inner  life  of  persons 
are  those  religious  energies  which  culminate  in  Christianity.  Here, 
at  any  rate,  it  would  seem,  is  an  instance  of  a  religious  motive  and 
sentiment  effecting  a  widespread  rearrangement  of  men's  habitual 
ideas.  It  is  this  sort  of  thing  which  might  well  make  one  pause  in 
accepting  Professor  Dewey's  dictum  that  "there  is  not  an  instance 
of  any  large  idea  about  the  world  being  independently  generated  by 
religion."15  It  is  just  this  deepening  appreciation  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  mind,  so  abundantly  testified  to,  and  which  surely  has  given  birth 
to  certain  "large  ideas  about  the  world,"  that  is  due  in  great  measure 
to  the  impact  of  religious  experiences  and  motives. 

I  shall  mention  several  aspects  of  this  shifting  of  emphasis  from 
the  significant  structures  to  which,  for  Plato,  ideas  were  linked,  to 
the  activities  of  conscious  beings.  In  the  first  place,  once  this  linkage 
of  ideas  to  outer  Forms  becomes  less  secure,  the  more  free  ideas 
become,  the  less  do  knowledge  and  contemplation  express  the  whole 
nature  of  man's  vocation.  The  life  and  thought  of  men  grow  now  out 
of  attitudes  and  experiences  in  which  not  contemplation,  but  ac- 
tivity; not  intellect,  but  will  and  feeling;  not  esthetic  and  philosophic 
theoria,  but  ethical  striving  and  emotional  aspiration  express  men's 
dominant  interests.  This  is,  of  course,  a  commonplace.  We  shall 
presently  note  an  important  qualification  to  which  the  statement  is 
subject,  but  I  shall  here  dismiss  this  transition  from  the  life  of 
knowledge  to  that  of  will  and  feeling  with  the  following  quotation 
from  Mr.  Percy  Gardner:  "It  may  fairly  be  said  that  the  essentially 
active  nature  of  man,  the  place  of  will  in  the  constitution  of  the 
world,  is  a  truth  which  has  gradually  been  growing  upon  humanity 
during  all  the  ages  of  its  thought.  Little  was  made  of  the  will  in  the 
philosophy  of  Greece,  though  it  was  better  appreciated  by  Aristotle 
than  by  Plato,  and  better  by  the  Stoics  and  Neo-Platonists  than  by 
Aristotle,  and  modern  philosophy  has  made  far  more  of  the  will  than 
ancient."16 

15  Dewey :  "The  Influence  of  Darwin  upon  Philosophy,"  p.  3.  Cf.  also  the  following 
quotation  from  Toy:  "Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion,"  p.  8.  "But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  religious  sentiment,  coexisting  with  these  ideas,  has  always  entered 
into  alliance  with  them,  creating  nothing,  but  appropriating  everything." 

16  Percy   Gardner:   "The   Sub-conscious  and  the   Super-conscious."   The   Hibbert 
Journal,  April,  191 1,  p.  490. 

[  79  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

But  in  the  second  place,  what  we  shall  need  to  observe  with  great 
care  is  that  although  there  is  this  undoubted  migration  of  ideas  from 
outer  intelligible  Forms  to  the  inner  life,  and  although  there  is  the 
accompanying  emergence  of  will  and  of  feeling,  nevertheless  there  is 
still  an  objective  reference  which  attaches  to  the  life  of  the  mind. 
The  inner  life,  within  the  ethos  of  Christianity  as  within  that  of 
Platonism,  is  still  conceived  as  participating  in  an  objective,  yes,  a 
cosmic  order.  But  this  element  of  objective  reference,  of  possession 
and  of  participation  has  undergone  a  change.  And  I  propose  to 
describe  what  that  change  was  by  reverting  first  of  all  to  the  differ- 
ent conceptions  of  love  which  were  provided  for  by  Platonism  and 
Christianity  respectively.  In  the  Platonic  conception  of  love,  we  have 
said,  love  is  essentially  assimilated  to  knowledge,  and  that,  because 
the  true  object  of  love  is  universal.  In  the  thought  and  life  of  Chris- 
tianity we  must  say,  I  think,  that  knowledge  is  essentially  assimi- 
lated to  love.  The  reasons  for  saying  this  strike  deep,  and  will 
presently  appear.  But  first  we  may  refer  to  another  characteristic  of 
Platonic  love  which  shows  its  kinship  with  the  life  of  knowledge.  If 
we  think  of  the  knowledge  relationship,  of  any  knower  and  that 
which  is  to  be  known,  we  may  say  that  the  relationship  is  not,  as  the 
logicians  put  it,  symmetrical.  The  current  runs,  so  to  speak,  only  in 
one  direction.  The  knower  seeks  the  object  to  be  known,  he  must 
conform  to  it.  He  is  active;  it,  the  object,  is  fixed  and  unmoved.  It 
does  not  go  out  to  meet  the  knower.  Such,  in  any  case,  is  the  prima 
facie  account  of  the  knowledge  relationship.  And  just  so  does  Plato 
describe  the  relation  between  the  lover  and  the  object  which  is  or 
which  is  to  be  loved.  For  Plato  and  for  Aristotle  as  well,  love  is  the 
seeking  of  the  lower  for  the  higher,  the  incomplete  for  the  complete, 
the  empty  for  the  full,  appearance  for  reality.  And  just  as,  in  the 
knowledge  relation,  the  object  to  be  known  is  the  standard  for  and 
the  source  of  whatever  value  (truth  value,  that  is,)  the  knowing 
idea  may  possess,  so  here.  The  object  of  love  it  is  which  confers 
value  and  meaning  upon  the  act  of  loving.  The  beloved  object  is  the 
standard,  the  norm,  and  the  source  both  of  the  activity  of  loving,  and 
of  its  significance.  Whatever  value  the  act  of  loving  possesses  is  not 

f  80  1 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

inherent  in  the  act  as  such,  but  is  derived  from  the  worth  which 
belongs  to  the  object  of  love.17 

The  differences  between  this  conception  and  the  characteristic 
utterances  and  attitudes  of  Christianity  are  both  familiar  and 
important.  We  may  compress  the  matter  into  brief  compass  by  say- 
ing that  for  Christianity,  the  worth  of  the  act  of  loving  does  not 
depend  upon  the  inherent  completeness  and  perfection  of  the  object 
of  love,  but  is  itself  and  in  its  own  nature,  intrinsically  worthful.  So 
that  it,  the  loving  act  and  deed,  confers  value  and  significance  upon 
its  object.  For  Platonism,  the  activity  of  loving  is  worthful  only  as 
its  object  is  antecedently  of  worth;  for  Christianity,  objects  alone 
possess  worth  in  so  far  as  they  are  loved.  It  is  the  act  of  loving  itself 
which  now  becomes  of  supreme  value,  and  the  source  of  all  other 
value.  Hence,  no  longer  is  the  relationship  of  love  essentially  unsym- 
metrical  arising  from  the  desire  of  the  incomplete  and  the  lower  for 
the  complete  and  the  higher.  Since  the  act  of  loving  possesses  intrin- 
sic worth  in  itself,  and  the  highest  worth,  the  relationship  between 
the  lover  and  the  beloved  is  reciprocal.  The  object  of  love,  if  it  is 
worthy  of  love,  must  be  a  being  capable  of  the  act  of  love.18  And 
thus,  whereas  a  permanent  significant  structure,  the  beauty  and 
order  of  the  cosmos,  may  be  the  object  of  our  intellectual  longing 
and  of  our  contemplation,  only  a  conscious  being,  of  the  order  of  a 
self,  can  be  the  object  of  our  love.  How  profoundly  this  entire  change 
must  have  affected  men's  habits  of  thought,  especially  their  concep- 
tions of  human  persons  and  of  God,  is  obvious.  God  is  not  now  so 
much  the  Idea  of  the  Good,  as  the  being  who  loves  and  who  thereby 
confers  worth  upon  the  objects  of  love.  Our  interest  here  lies  in 
observing  two  things:  First,  this  change  in  the  conception  and  status 
of  love  is  a  concomitant  of  that  severance  of  ideas  from  the  fixed 
order  of  objective  structures  which  they  know,  and  in  whose 
substance  they  participate,  and  their  lodgment  instead  in  the 
conscious  activities  of  selves.  But  secondly,  and  more  important, 

17  This  account  of  Platonic  love,  though  I  think  it  to  be  substantially  correct, 
would  need  certain  qualifications  in  a  more  complete  analysis.  But  those  qualifications 
would  concern  just  those  elements  in  which  Plato  was  essentially  non-Greek. 

18  Cf.  the  admirable  discussion  in  the  essay  of  Max  Scheler,  Das  Ressentiment  im 
Aufbau  der  moralen,  in  "Abhandlungen  und  Aufsatze,"  vol.  i,  pp.  n8ff. 

[    8!    ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

this  inner  conscious  activity,  set  free  as  it  is  from  the  intelligible 
Forms  of  reality,  does  not  yet  exist  unattached;  it  is  still  linked 
to  and  it  still  participates  in  something  real  and  objective.  But  the 
object  of  its  possession  is  no  longer  merely  a  significant  structure, 
an  intelligible  Form,  it  is  something  concrete,  historical,  and  indi- 
vidual. Esthetic  and  intellectual  theoria,  contemplation  of  universal 
structures,  gives  way  to  passionate  loyalty  to  and  love  for  an  indi- 
vidual, either  an  historical  Person,  or  an  historical  community,  with 
a  concrete  life  and  purpose  of  its  own.  It  is  in  that  community  and 
in  that  life  that  the  individual  is  now  to  participate,  through  will 
and  feeling,  loyalty  and  love,  rather  than  in  a  Platonic  Form, 
through  contemplation.  Or,  in  order  not  to  violate  too  much  the 
real  historical  continuity  here  between  Plato  and  Christianity,  let 
us  say  that  the  Platonic  Idea  now  becomes  an  historical  life — that 
of  a  self  and  a  community,  and  accordingly  the  means  through 
which  the  mind  possesses  and  participates  in  that  Idea  undergoes 
the  change  which  we  have  indicated. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss,  or  to  seek  to  verify  for  its  own 
sake  the  thesis  that  we  discover  and  respond  to  universal  structures 
and  laws  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  genuinely  individual  beings  on  the 
other  hand  by  two  essentially  different  attitudes  and  interests.  We 
are  hardly  too  venturesome  if  we  speak  of  this  as  one  of  the  assured 
results  of  philosophical  reflection,  that  whereas  universals  are  the 
objects  of  dispassionate  contemplation,  of  science,  in  order  that 
individuals  other  than  mere  passing  instances  of  types  shall  be  dis- 
closed, some  activity  akin  to  selective  interest,  appreciation,  feeling, 
and  love  must  be  called  into  play.  It  is  Royce  who,  more  than  others, 
has  brought  this  home  to  our  convictions  and  our  imagination. 
Thought,  through  definition,  reaches  no  true  individual  being,  nor 
is  an  individual  presentable  in  some  immediate,  here-and-now  expe- 
rience. It  is  "that  which  has  sometimes  been  called  Will  and  some- 
times Love"  which  individuates  our  world.19 

We  begin  now  to  see  something  of  the  interrelations  of  these 
various  aspects  of  that  vast  historical  transition  from  Platonism 
to  Christianity.  Ideas  which  for  Plato  are  linked  to  Forms,  to  signifi- 
cant structures,  come  rather  to  center  in  the  life  of  selves.  This 

19  See  especially  Royce's  supplementary  essay  in  "The  Conception  of  God." 

[  82  ] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

releases  those  energies  of  the  mind  which  are  less  concerned  with 
sheer  participation  in  or  coalescence  with  objective  Forms.  But 
these  energies,  will  and  feeling,  are  the  very  ones  which  seek  out 
individuals,  and  which  terminate  in  them  rather  than  in  universal 
structures  and  types.  And  we  come  upon  here  something  in  the 
light  of  which  many  of  the  central  characteristics  of  the  religious 
tradition,  in  its  higher  reaches,  may  be  best  understood.  There  is, 
namely,  a  certain  sensitiveness  and  devotion  to  something  local, 
embodied  within  a  concrete  tradition,  which  is  one  of  the  marked 
traits  of  the  religious  attitude.  Such  possession,  in  feeling,  in  love, 
and  in  imagination  of  that  which  has  an  individual  and  historical 
life,  with  this  we  are  most  familiar  in  the  religious  tradition  at  its 
best.  All  that  men  say  of  the  inherent  conservatism  of  religion,  the 
sensitiveness  to  the  past  and  to  tradition  which  the  very  name  of 
piety  connotes,  is  indeed  true.  Hitherto,  in  the  life  of  men,  this 
function  of  appropriating  and  possessing  and  carrying  on  the  life 
of  an  historical  and  individual  institution,  idea,  or  community, — 
hitherto  this  function  has  largely  been  absorbed  by  religion.  Herein 
lies,  I  take  it,  the  profound  insight  and  justice  of  Royce's  interpreta- 
tion of  religion  as  essentially  loyalty,  loyalty  to  a  community,  which 
is  indeed  superhuman,  but  definitely  individual.  The  sacred  is  in 
truth  ever  enshrined  within  something  which  is  concrete,  unique  and 
which  lives  throughout  time.  Such  an  individual  being  alone  can  be 
the  object  of  love,  of  piety,  and  of  worship.  Any  attempt  such  as  that 
of  deism  to  strip  entirely  away  such  devotion  to  an  historical  and 
institutional  community  in  the  hope  of  leaving  a  "natural"  religion 
shows  a  failure  to  sense  the  very  thing  which  differentiates  religion 
from,  say,  mathematics  or  metaphysics.  An  age  such  as  the  eight- 
eenth century  which  responded  with  enthusiasm  and  interest  only 
to  the  universal  and  the  common,  the  natural  and  the  rational,  and 
which  failed  to  have  sympathy  for  the  historical  and  the  individual 
must  of  necessity  view  religion  with  distrust,  or  seek  to  assimilate 
it  with  universal  morality  or  knowledge.  Although  present  within 
the  religious  attitude  from  the  start,  this  sense  of  possessing  and 
participating  in  the  very  life  of  a  being,  at  once  individual  and  his- 
torical increases  as  we  follow  the  long  road  of  religious  development. 
We  must  surely  assent  to  the  statement  of  Mr.  Webb  that  "a  reli- 

[  83  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

gion  which  involves  as  part  of  its  essence  a  sacred  history  is,  in  this 
way,  at  a  higher  level  than  one  which,  while  setting  forth  certain 
universal  principles,  moral  or  metaphysical,  is  ready  to  symbolize 
them  by  anything  that  comes  to  hand  as  it  were,  and  is  compara- 
tively indifferent  to  the  particular  symbol  chosen.  Thus  a  religion 
which,  having  developed  a  theology,  regards  the  narratives  which 
are  associated  with  it  as  mere  illustrative  stories,  ranks  below  one 
which  regards  them  as  the  actual  form  which  the  universal  principles 
have  taken."20 

And  if  the  object  which  the  mind  appropriates  and  possesses 
through  love  is  something  which  is  at  least  individual,  a  world  in 
which  there  is  any  purposive  activity  must  also  be  a  world  which 
contains  individual  objects  and  situations.  A  realm  of  universal 
meanings  and  timeless  Forms  is  a  fit  object  for  contemplation,  but 
only  an  historical  community  or  life  can  be  a  fit  object  of  the  will's 
interest.  Interest  and  devotion  are  individualizing  and  exclusive; 
one  master  alone  can  be  served,  whereas  all  causes  and  purposes  may 
be  contemplated  dispassionately.  "Out  of  time  and  history  is,  in  the 
long  run,  out  of  meaning  and  use."21  This  is,  no  doubt,  one  reason 
why  mysticism,  stressing  the  inclusive  and  universal  nature  of  that 
to  which  the  mind  goes  out  tends  to  quietism,  and  has  often  been 
instinctively  distrusted  by  the  religious  mind,  devoted  to  the  purpose 
and  the  spirit  of  an  individual  community.22 

Any  religious  life  then  in  which  participation  and  purposive 
activity  have  played  a  decisive  part  is  one  in  which  there  is  an  appre- 
hension and  appropriation  of  genuinely  individual  and  historical 
structures.  It  is  such  structures,  possessing  individuality,  which 
within  the  tradition  of  Christianity  play  a  part  analogous  to  that 

20 Webb:  op.  cit.,  p.  30.  I  may  quote  also  the  following  from  an  article  by  Mr. 
H.  A.  L.  Fisher  on  French  Nationalism  in  the  Hibbert  Journal,  January,  1917,  p.  216: 
"The  spirit  of  Catholicism  is  a  spirit  of  submission  to  the  local  pieties,  inherited  in- 
stincts, and  particularizing  forces  of  history.  The  doctrine  of  Catholicism  has  its 
universal  church;  but  the  spirit  of  Catholicism,  so  far  from  being  cosmopolitan,  is 
intertwined  with  an  unconscious  tangle  of  exclusion  and  preferences  accumulated  in 
the  passage  of  centuries  and  transmitted  from  a  distant  past." 

21Marett:  "Anthropology,"  p.  137. 

22  Cf.  the  statement  of  Rickert,  in  "Die  Grenzen  der  Naturwissenschaftlichen 
Begriffsbildung,"  p.  527:  "In  einer  vollkommen  rationalen  Welt  kann  niemand  wirken." 

[84] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

played  by  intelligible  Forms,  universal  and  timeless  Ideas,  in 
Platonism.  Both  Platonism  and  Christianity  are  the  outgrowth  of 
attitudes  and  interests  of  appropriation  and  of  possession,  the  one 
of  universal,  the  other  of  individual  structures. 

In  a  very  stimulating  essay  on  the  "Middle  Ages,  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Modern  Mind/'23  Professor  Norman  K.  Smith  has  made  the 
suggestion  that  what  is  inadequately  named  "the  romantic  move- 
ment" at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  the  "channel  through 
which  the  modern  mind  resumed  contact  with  its  medieval"  sources, 
and  that  means  the  tradition  of  Christianity.  And  those  outstanding 
characteristics  of  romanticism — the  imaginative  appeal  made  by 
the  life  of  earlier  historical  epochs,  its  "reverence  for  organic  pro- 
cesses which  transcend  the  scope  of  the  designing  intelligence"  and 
which  must  be  understood  if  at  all  through  sympathetic  apprecia- 
tion— through  love — its  sense  for  the  unique  and  the  individual,  and 
its  scorn  for  what  is  but  universal  and  rational,  all  these  motives 
are  indeed  close  to  that  which  is  most  central  in  the  life  of  the  reli- 
gious tradition.  A  study  either  of  Christianity  or  of  romanticism 
discloses  countless  instances  of  what  is  really  an  assimilation  of 
knowledge  to  love,  and  which  may  be  contrasted  with  the  burden 
of  the  classical,  or  Platonic  tradition,  the  assimilation  of  love  to 
knowledge. 

But  after  all,  we  are  still  in  the  presence  of  problems  and  not  of 
solutions.  We  might  point  out  the  defects  of  each  of  these  two  tradi- 
tions— the  Platonic  or  classical  and  the  Christian  or  "romantic," 
when  allowed  to  go  its  own  way  unmodified  by  the  other.  The  ex- 
cesses of  too  exclusive  a  preoccupation  with  the  unique  and  the 
individual  lead  but  too  easily  to  a  contempt  for  every  binding  and 
universal  law  which  shall  warp  and  constrain  the  individual  into 
some  organized  order  and  discipline.  But  who  would  wish  to  ignore 
all  the  fruits  of  a  discovery  and  devotion  to  individual  historical 
structures  whose  content  is  wealthier  than  what  might  be  deduced 
from  any  universal  rational  knowledge,  and  which  give  so  much 
the  appearance  then  of  being  contingent  and  irrational?  Our  tradi- 
tional philosophies  are  still,  in  a  way,  overwhelmingly  Platonic.  They 
reflect  the  attitude  of  contemplation,  and  the  interest  in  the  dis- 

23  The  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1914. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

covery  and  possession  of  universal  significant  structures.  In  them 
only  haltingly  and  half-heartedly,  if  at  all,  are  the  interests  which 
terminate  in  genuine  individual  structures  reckoned  with.  This  is 
true  both  of  all  forms  of  naturalism  and  of  very  much  within  ideal- 
ism. It  is  true  of  the  new  realism,  and,  contrary  to  general  belief,  it 
is  true,  I  am  sure,  of  some  aspects  of  pragmatic  instrumentalism.  It 
is  only  the  philosophies  of  romanticism  which  have  broken  com- 
pletely with  Platonism,  and  they  have  done  so  in  ways  which  chal- 
lenge doubt  and  criticism — and  so  we  may  say  with  Professor  Smith 
in  the  article  already  referred  to,  that  our  task  is  that  of  reformu- 
lating and  fusing  together  the  "two  great  traditions  upon  which  our 
civilization  historically  rests." 

But  there  is,  too,  another  problem,  and  that  a  deeper  and  more 
perplexing  one.  After  all  we  must  never  forget  that  both  of  these 
traditions,  Platonism  and  Christianity,  profoundly  agree  in  one 
important  respect.  They  both  give  utterance  to  attitudes  of  Posses- 
sion, and  the  possession  of  structures  which  are  intrinsically  signifi- 
cant and  divine.  For  Platonism  and  Christianity  man's  life  and 
vocation  are  definable  only  in  terms  of  a  recognition  of  and  partici- 
pation in  these  significant  structures.  They  differ  in  the  nature  of 
these,  their  respective  objects  of  appropriation  and  of  possession, 
and  they  differ  in  the  attitude  and  type  of  mental  energy  pertinent 
to  these  two  structures.  For  both  Platonism  and  Christianity  nature 
and  the  world  of  sense  constitute  a  message  with  a  meaning;  man's 
task  it  is  to  pierce  through  to  that  meaning,  to  contemplate  and  to 
appropriate  it,  and  not  to  create  it  through  his  activity.  For  Pla- 
tonism, once  more,  such  meanings  are  intelligible  Forms,  things  of 
beauty  and  of  reason,  universal  and  timeless.  They  are  to  be  partici- 
pated in  and  possessed  through  contemplation,  through  art  and 
philosophy.  For  Christianity,  these  meanings  are  divine  purposes, 
informing  the  concrete  and  individual  life  of  historical  processes, 
selves  and  communities.  They  are  then  to  be  participated  in  and  to 
be  greeted  by  love  and  by  loyalty. 

But  the  common  heritage  of  both  Platonism  and  Christianity, 
their  common  insistence  upon  the  mind's  discovery  of  something 
antecedently  and  inherently  good  is  best  seen  when  we  measure  them 
together  against  those  characteristic  energies  which  have  fashioned 

[  86  ] 


PLATONISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

our  modern  habits  of  life  and  of  thought.  Democracy,  economic 
rationalism,  science  have  accustomed  our  minds  to  distrust  any- 
thing offered  to  it  for  appropriation  and  possession.  They  bid  us 
incessantly  create,  make  our  world  and  all  the  objects  of  value 
which  it  shall  contain.  They  reveal  the  forces  which  from  below, 
from  nature,  and  from  life,  from  instinct  and  impulse  generate  ideas 
and  activities.  Mind  becomes  the  instrument  and  the  fruition  of 
success  in  maintaining  an  interest  against  an  indifferent  environ- 
ment, and  we  are  in  an  altogether  different  world  from  that  of  either 
Plato  or  Christianity.  So  that  our  deepest  concern  is  hardly  that  of 
reconciling  the  two  traditions  of  Platonism  and  Christianity,  classi- 
cism and  romanticism  with  each  other,  but  of  deciding  what  place, 
if  any,  either  or  both  of  these  two  systems  of  ideas  may  rightfully 
claim  recognition  in  a  world  in  which  not  possession,  but  creative 
activity,  democracy,  and  the  liberation  of  intelligence  in  the  service 
of  human  desires  seem  to  utter  our  dearest  wants.  Shall  we  say  with 
Dewey  that  "the  philosophic  tradition  that  comes  to  us  from  classic 
Greek  thought  and  that  was  reinforced  by  Christian  philosophy  in 
the  middle  ages  .  .  .  now  tends  to  be  an  ingenious  dialectic  exer- 
cised in  professional  corners  by  a  few  who  have  retained  ancient 
premises  while  rejecting  their  application  to  the  conduct  of  life"?24 
and  shall  we  say  with  Santayana  that  "the  shell  of  Christendom  is 
broken.  The  unconquerable  mind  of  the  East,  the  pagan  past,  the 
industrial  socialistic  future  confront  it  with  their  equal  authority. 
Our  whole  life  and  mind  is  saturated  with  the  slow  upward  nitration 
of  a  new  spirit — that  of  an  emancipated,  atheistic,  international 
democracy"?25  Surely  this  last  seems  to  us  now26  vastly  more  remote 
than  it  seemed  when  these  lines  were  written.  May  it  not  be  that  we 
shall  find  something  continuous  with  these  older  traditions,  however 
altered  in  form  and  language,  which  shall  contribute  to  the  rebuild- 
ing of  that  civilization  whose  shattering  seems,  at  least,  to  coincide 
with  the  fullest  development  of  what  men  had  formerly  prized  as 
most  modern. 

2*  "Creative  Intelligence,"  p.  S3- 

25  "Winds  of  Doctrine,"  p.  i. 

26  Written  before  the  European  revolutions. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND 
AND  OF  SELF 

SFBSEQUENT  to  both  Platonism  and  Christianity,  there 
are  the  forces  which  have  made  the  modern  world.  Two  of 
those  forces,  centering  around  the  changed  attitude  signified 
by  democracy,  and  around  the  fundamental  economic  and 
industrial  conditions  of  modern  life,  have  already  come 
to  our  notice.  With  these  in  mind  we  turned  to  the  religious  tradition, 
its  beginnings,  and  its  expression  within  Platonism  and  Christianity. 
What  specially  concerned  us  in  the  study  of  these  two  life  forces 
was  the  way  in  which,  for  each  of  them,  the  mind  of  man  was  be- 
lieved to  be  in  possession  of  significant  structures,  objects  either  of 
intellectual  contemplation  or  of  ethical  loyalty.  The  life  of  the  mind 
terminated  in  and  also  participated  in  these  significant  structures; 
it  believed  itself  thus  to  possess  a  knowledge  of  them.  That  knowl- 
edge and  that  sharing,  either  through  contemplation  or  through 
love,  illumined  and  organized  the  entire  range  of  man's  interests 
and  his  deeds.  We  are  now  once  more  to  come  back  to  the  modern 
age,  to  our  world,  and  observe  the  nature  and  the  effects  of  what 
is  essentially  a  single  process,  the  process,  namely,  whereby  the 
mind's  ideas  are  conceived  far  more  as  the  projection  of  natural 
forces  which  lie  behind  them,  than  as  participating  in  significant 
structures  which  they  know.  This  profound  alteration  in  the  status 
and  connotation  of  mind  and  the  problems  which  thereby  emerge, 
constitute  the  abiding  center  of  interest  in  the  whole  of  modern 
philosophy. 

Before  describing  this  process  we  may  observe  one  large  way  of 
analyzing  and  formulating  the  central  problem  about  mind.  It  con- 
sists in  noticing  the  main  classes  of  objects  or  entities  to  which  our 

[  89  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

minds  are  related.  These  different  regions  of  objects  exist,  and  these 
relations  there  are,  no  matter  what  final  theory  about  the  mind,  its 
nature  and  status,  one  may  accept.  We  have  to  do  here,  then,  merely 
with  the  common  data  of  our  problem.  There  are  four  such  regions 
of  our  world  to  which  our  minds  sustain  some  definite  relation. 
There  is,  first,  the  class  of  objects  which  are,  or  which  may  be, 
known  by  our  minds.  Such  are  not  only  physical  objects  but,  of 
course,  numerous  other  kinds  as  well.  Past  and  future  events,  the 
minds  of  our  fellow  men,  the  abstract  entities  and  relations  of  logic 
and  of  mathematics,  laws  of  nature,  probabilities  and  assumptions, 
all  belong  here  within  this  first  region.  Even  a  thoroughgoing  intel- 
lectual scepticism,  if  there  be  any  such,  will  not  escape  the  necessity 
of  recognizing  some  situation,  however  poverty-stricken,  which  is 
the  true  and  the  known  object  of  some  idea.  For  there  is  existent 
even  in  such  case,  the  situation  that  knowledge  is  difficult  to  obtain, 
is  precarious,  doubtful,  is  even  impossible,  and  that  situation  will 
sustain  just  this  first  relationship  to  the  mind.  But,  coming  to  the 
second  class,  among  the  objects  which  the  mind  knows,  there  is  one 
which  sustains  to  it  a  different  relation  than  that  of  merely  being 
known.  I  refer  to  the  body,  or  if  you  choose,  the  brain.  The  mind 
may  of  course  know  the  body,  but  it  is  related  to  its  body  in  a  way 
in  which  it  is  not  related  to  any  other  object.  Now  obviously,  any 
adequate  theory  of  mind  must  not  only  interpret  the  mind's  knowl- 
edge of  whatever  it  may  know,  but  it  must  also  meet  the  facts  con- 
cerning the  mind's  relation  to  the  biological  organism  to  which  it 
bears  so  intimate  and  unique  a  relation.  No  theory  of  knowledge 
will,  of  itself,  account  for  and  render  intelligible  this  body-mind 
situation.  The  third  region  with  which  mind  is  concerned  has  a 
certain  analogy  with  the  brain.  The  actual  course  of  our  ideas  and 
our  sentiments  seems  to  depend  not  only  upon  biological  organisms, 
but  upon  the  social  "body"  as  well,  the  social  environment  and  the 
"Folkways"  amidst  which  the  mind  lives  and  carries  on  its  think- 
ing. No  one  now  would  doubt  that  here  is  some  actual  contact  and 
influence  which  would  need  to  be  reckoned  with  in  any  theory  of 
mind.  There  is  at  least  a  place  for  social  psychology  alongside  of 
physiological  psychology,  though  it  seems  to  exist  as  yet  chiefly  in 
promise. 

[  90  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

The  fourth  and  last  region  to  which  in  some  fashion  our  minds 
are  related  may  for  the  present  be  spoken  of  as  the  class  of  "practi- 
cal objects."  Instead  of  speaking  of  "mind,"  or  of  "our  minds"  let  us 
now  use  the  personal  pronoun,  and  say  that  besides  supposing  our- 
selves to  know  various  things,  and  besides  being  bound  up  with  the 
fortunes  of  our  bodies  and  of  the  social  tissue  which  surrounds  us, 
we  also  seek  to  act,  to  fashion,  and  to  control  some  of  the  things 
which  our  world  contains.  We  are  not  wholly  indifferent  spectators 
of  our  world;  we  have  interests  and  preferences  and  ideals,  and  we 
try  to  fulfill  them.  Any  object  involved  in  these  active  interests  and 
attitudes,  in  which  our  will  or  our  affections  thus  terminate,  we  may 
speak  of  as  a  practical  object.  Our  fellow  men  with  whom  we  co- 
operate, or  against  whom  we  struggle  and  compete  are  such  "prac- 
tical objects."  They  are  also,  it  may  be,  beings  who  comprise  part 
of  the  social  environment  which  is  constantly  exerting  pressure  upon 
us  and  influencing  the  content  of  our  minds,  just  as  they  are  also 
beings  who  may  be  known  by  us.  The  traits  peculiar  to  the  class 
of  "practical  objects"  are  not  adequately  dealt  with  when  we  con- 
sider them  only  with  reference  to  the  fact  that  they  may  be  known, 
or  the  fact  that,  like  the  body,  they  stimulate  and  mould  our  minds. 
There  is  in  each  of  these  regions  then  a  typical  relation  which  the 
mind  sustains  to  the  objects  comprising  that  region.  Yet  it  will  be 
noted  that  these  four  regions  fall  into  two  groups.  My  body  or  brain, 
and  my  social  environment  influence  my  ideas,  determine  me  to 
think  and  feel  as  I  do;  they  furnish  stimuli  to  the  mind.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  objects  which  I  know  and  the  practical  objects 
which  I  choose  and  which  guide  my  activity  provide  my  mind  with 
"objects"  in  which  ideas  and  feelings  terminate.  The  first  group 
provides  termini  a  quo;  the  second  group  provides  termini  ad 
quern.  We  may  think  and  speak  both  of  the  body  and  of 
the  social  tissue  of  heredity  and  of  environment  as  exerting 
pressure  from  below  or  from  behind,  while  the  objects  which  we 
know  and  desire  beckon  us  on  from  above  or  from  in  front.  Now 
this  is  for  us  here  nothing  but  a  frankly  empirical  and  descriptive 
account  of  certain  situations  which  require  explanation  and  inter- 
pretation. We  shall  later  on  be  interested  in  the  success  or  failure 
of  certain  theories  of  consciousness  to  keep  in  view  this  entire  circle 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

of  regions  which  sustain  these  various  relationships  to  the  life  of 
mind.  At  present  we  wish  to  call  attention  to  that  historical  process 
in  which  the  forces  and  objects  which  lie  behind  the  mind,  the 
termini  a  quo,  have  come  into  view  so  as  profoundly  to  alter  and 
even  to  make  precarious  the  status  of  all  the  objects  of  our  knowl- 
edge and  our  will,  the  termini  ad  quern  of  our  ideas.  It  is  a  large 
process  coincident  with  the  emergence  and  the  sustained  operation 
of  all  of  those  energies  which  characterize  the  modern  age.  It  is  a 
process  in  which  ideas  retreat  from  the  objective  and  significant 
structures  which  they  know  and  come  to  be  viewed  instead  as  the 
projection  of  nature's  forces  and  vital  interests.  This  withdrawal 
of  the  mind  from  Platonic  Forms  and  from  changeless  objects  of 
contemplation  and  devotion  is,  in  some  measure  surely,  a  process 
of  the  increasing  isolation  of  ideas,  isolation,  that  is,  from  such 
objects  as  formerly  constituted  the  true  center  of  reference  for  all 
of  the  mind's  interests.  The  consciousness  of  this  increasing  isolation 
of  ideas  from  outer  significant  Forms  generates  the  problem  of 
knowledge.  That  problem  persists  throughout  the  entire  period  of 
modern  thought.  Its  persistence  signifies  that  the  isolation  of  ideas, 
their  withdrawal  from  significant  structures,  their  linkage  solely 
to  the  natural  forces  and  interests  which  generate  them  character- 
izes the  whole  of  the  modern  age.  The  preoccupation  of  modern 
thinkers  with  the  question  concerning  the  possibility  and  the  validity 
of  knowledge,  with  the  intricacies  and  subtleties  of  epistemology, 
is  no  accident  nor  is  it  due  to  any  perverse  fondness  of  philosophers 
for  problems  which  are  merely  verbal  and  artificial.  That  pre- 
occupation reflects  one  aspect  of  the  entire  cultural  situation  within 
the  modern  age.  With  the  withdrawal  of  ideas  from  participation 
in  the  life  of  significant  structures  there  results  the  problem  of 
values,  not  merely  the  problem  as  to  the  theoretical  value  of  our 
ideas  for  the  purposes  of  knowledge,  but  the  question  as  to  the 
value  of  every  one  of  our  major  human  interests  as  well.  The  prob- 
lem of  knowledge  is  but  one  part  of  the  much  larger  problem  of 
values. 

How  can  ideas  genuinely  be  linked  to  real  objects  if  they  but 
reveal  the  particular  body  and  interests  which  lie  behind  them? 
How  can  they  serve  two  masters,  and,  Janus-like,  face  in  two  oppo- 

[  92  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

site  directions?  This  problem  becomes  more  insistent  and  more 
imperious  as  region  after  region  of  nature,  life,  and  history  are 
revealed,  each  disclosing  some  fresh  claim  which  is  made,  from 
below,  upon  the  beliefs  and  sentiments  of  men.  We  have  discovered 
how  very  much  of  the  idea's  function  and  nature  is  absorbed  in 
expressing  those  life  interests  which  push  up  from  below  so  that  we 
wonder  how  much,  if  any,  energy  in  the  idea  is  left  over,  as  it  were, 
to  envisage  and  really  to  know  whatever  may  lie  in  front  of  the 
mind.  Hence  even  though  it  is  quite  true  that  there  is  "something 
preposterous  in  the  notion  that  one  can  attain  to  anything  like  a 
complete  insight  into  the  nature  of  reality  by  a  scrutiny  of  the 
processes  of  knowledge,  while  actual  living  is  such  a  different 
affair,"1  yet  for  us  to  inquire  into  the  possibility  and  nature  of 
knowledge  is  really  to  examine  the  status  and  function  of  mind  in 
which  alone,  of  course,  knowledge  exists.  And  it  is  just  that  status 
which  is  so  perplexing  because  of  the  double  claim  made  upon  our 
ideas.  Ideas  do  know  something — so  we  are  accustomed  to  say — 
and  ideas  also  utter  the  life  and  the  interests  of  some  particular 
organism.  This  is,  indeed,  our  problem  not  only  of  the  possibility 
of  knowledge  itself,  but  of  the  relation  between  knowledge  and 
behavior,  possession  and  activity,  the  good  and  desire,  theory  and 
practice.  It  is,  we  shall  also  see,  the  problem  of  the  relation  between 
mind  and  body.  We  miss  the  purport  and  the  insistence  of  the  prob- 
lem of  knowledge  unless  we  recognize  that  it  is  an  instance  of  the 
problem  of  values  at  large.  A  true  idea,  one  which  does  really  convey 
knowledge,  is  one  which  is,  in  so  far,  valuable,  valuable  that  is  for 
the  purposes  of  knowledge.  To  define  knowledge  and  to  say  some- 
thing significant  about  the  situation  which  makes  it  possible  and 
real,  is  to  throw  some  light  upon  all  of  the  other  values,  ethical, 
religious,  and  social,  around  which  so  many  of  our  perplexities  and 
problems  center. 

We  are  then  to  describe  some  aspects  of  that  shifting  of  emphasis 
from  significant  structures  awaiting  the  mind's  appropriation  and 
possession,  to  the  matter-of-fact  processes  of  nature  and  of  society, 
whose  forward  urge  finds  a  voice  in  the  mind's  ideas.  And  we  shall 

1  Woodbridge :  "The  Problem  of  Consciousness,"  in  "Amherst  Studies  in  Philosophy 
and  Psychology,"  p.  146. 

[  93  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

direct  our  attention  to  that  one  of  the  moving  and  formative  forces 
within  the  modern  world  which  has  had,  perhaps,  most  to  do  with 
the  direct  fashioning  of  our  habits  of  thought  and  of  our  more 
explicit  theories  of  life  and  of  mind.  It  is  science,  its  methods  and 
some  of  its  results,  which  will  here  interest  us.  One  should  not  forget 
that  modern  science  has  been  a  concomitant  of  the  other  powerful 
agencies  in  fashioning  our  age  of  democracy  and  economic  ration- 
alism. Because  of  this  mutual  relationship  modern  science  has  been 
something  different  from  Greek  science,  in  its  outlook,  its  methods, 
and  the  impact  of  its  influence  upon  men's  minds.  We  shall,  in  this 
chapter,  observe  first  something  of  the  general  character  of  modern 
science  as  a  whole.  We  shall  then  consider  certain  results  of  biology 
with  reference  to  the  life  and  status  of  ideas.  And  thirdly,  we  shall 
see  parallel  results  in  the  field  of  the  modern  historical  and  social 
sciences  with  reference  to  the  nature  and  the  status  of  values. 
Throughout,  we  shall  be  observing  different  aspects  of  one  process, 
the  retreat  and  the  isolation  of  mind. 

There  is,  now,  in  the  very  form  of  question  with  which  modern 
science  emerges,  something  more  than  a  suggestion  of  the  shifting 
of  emphasis  from  significant  structures  awaiting  apprehension  to 
natural  processes  calling  merely  for  adequate  description.  It  is  a 
commonplace  to  observe  that  Galileo's  experiments  upon  moving 
bodies  mark  the  true  beginning  of  modern  science.  Science,  coming 
now  to  its  second  birth  in  European  civilization,  differs  in  important 
respects  from  Greek  physical  science  which  had  reached  its  culmi- 
nation in  the  work  of  Democritus,  two  thousand  years  before 
Galileo.  Now,  in  its  renaissance,  science  was  to  ally  itself  with  those 
ideals  and  hopes,  those  attitudes  and  forces  which  were  to  make 
the  new  world,  however  late  it  might  be  that  men  should  become 
explicitly  aware  of  them.  And  what  we  may  say  is  that,  whereas 
Greek  science  had  asked  typically  the  question  why,  the  new  science 
asks  everywhere  only  the  question  how.  Just  this  is  involved  in 
studying  motion  as  a  process,  instead  of  regarding  it  as  a  quality 
of  a  substance.  The  actual  how  of  the  process  can  be  observed  and 
described;  even  to  ask  the  question  why,  if  it  connotes  anything 
other  than  how,  is  to  impute  to  the  object  in  question  some  hidden 
quality,  which  shall  both  explain  and  justify  the  process.  It  is  readily 

[  94  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

observable  how  all  of  the  essential  qualities  of  modern  science  hinge 
upon  this  transition  from  the  question  why  to  the  question  how. 
Experiment  is  substituted  for  definition.  For  the  Greeks,  if  one  knew 
the  definition  of  a  substance,  one  would  also  know  its  behavior, 
and  there  is,  in  principle,  no  access  to  its  behavior  except  through 
a  prior  knowledge  of  its  nature,  its  form,  its  essence.  Its  behavior 
is  but  the  subsequent  actualization  and  realization  of  this,  its  hidden 
nature.  Knowing  the  nature  of  fire,  one  knew  it  to  be  a  substance 
which  necessarily  moved  upward.  Since  motion  is  a  quality  of  a 
substance,  the  more  substance  there  is,  and,  accordingly,  the  heavier 
a  body  is,  the  more  motion  will  there  be  and  the  faster  will  it  fall. 
Now,  in  setting  about  merely  to  observe  behavior  as  a  process, 
Galileo  cut  loose  from  prior  definitions  which  of  themselves,  through 
implication  or  deduction,  would  yield  a  knowledge  of  the  body's 
behavior.  He  sets  out  to  observe  the  process  itself.  That  process 
stands  upon  its  own  feet,  as  it  were,  and  is  logically  independent  of 
all  prior  definitions.  Now, — and  this  it  is  which  especially  concerns 
us — this  procedure  is  but  an  illustration  of  that  vanishing  of  signifi- 
cant structures,  viewed  realistically,  as  entities  awaiting  apprehen- 
sion and  definition,  and  the  discovery  of  nature's  factual  processes 
which  furnish  the  observed  basis  for  whatever  hypotheses  may  ten- 
tatively be  suggested.  For  the  Aristotelian  definition  terminates  at 
once  in  the  significant  and  substantial  source  of  all  those  charac- 
teristics and  processes  of  an  object  which  perception  and  experience 
shall  reveal.  "Substance"  and  "cause,"  both  of  them  "significant 
structures,"  are  on  the  point  of  vanishing,  or  have  already  done  so, 
in  idea,  the  moment  when  Galileo's  method  becomes  generalized  and 
accepted  as  the  normal  procedure  of  science.  "Matter"  which  figures 
in  the  physical  and  mathematical  equations  describing  the  results 
of  Galileo's  observations,  is  no  intelligible  and  explaining  substance; 
it  is  the  invariant  which  correlates  specific  observable  moments  of 
time  with  specific  observable  points  of  space.  Nothing  "inheres"  in 
such  a  substance;  nor  does  it  render  intelligible  any  processes  or 
qualities  which  flow  from  it.  In  the  light  of  this  development  the 
verdict  seems  to  be  a  just  one  that  "since  science  has  made  utterly 
worthless  the  concept  of  substance,  a  period  of  thought  lasting  more 
than  a  thousand  years  draws  definitely  to  a  close.  .  .  .  The  history 

[  95  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

of  philosophy,  in  the  old  sense,  is  at  an  end,  for  this  is  preeminently 
the  history  of  the  idea  of  substance,  the  history  of  metaphysics."2 

This  older  substance  concept,  and  the  older  "bead  theory"3  of 
causation  which  was  its  concomitant,  whose  definition  'explained' 
some  process,  contains  also  the  ground  of  a  teleological  view  of 
science  and  of  nature.  Thus,  when  motion  is  regarded  as  the  out- 
come of  a  definable  quality  of  substance  or  matter,  then,  an  object, 
in  falling,  realizes  its  nature  and  its  destiny  and  achieves  the  pur- 
pose of  its  being.  Significant  structures  not  only  explain,  but  they 
justify  as  well.  The  processes  of  nature  are,  once  more,  viewed  as 
realizing  and  as  participating  in  intelligible  forms,  significant  struc- 
tures. Nature  is  the  visible  domain  and  the  transparent  illustration 
of  that  whose  primary  characteristic  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  possesses 
meaning,  that  it  is  good,  and  that  it  is  in  its  full  sense,  a  significant 
structure.  To  discard  teleology  is  to  substitute  the  question  how  for 
the  question  why;  it  is  to  describe  processes  which  themselves  are, 
as  processes,  autonomous,  rather  than  the  witness  and  the  actual- 
izing of  prior  intelligible  structures. 

These  consequences  of  the  new  science  may  be  viewed  in  still 
another  light.  Their  deeper  meaning  may  perhaps  be  said  to  lie  in 
the  way  in  which  they  utter  and  in  turn  stimulate  the  motive  of 
democracy  and  of  individualism.  They  typify  that  vast  reorgani- 
zation in  society  and  in  men's  outlook  which  we  have  expressed  in 
terms  of  the  contrast  between  Possession  and  Activity, — the  pos- 
session of  already  existing  significant  structures  which  but  await 
appropriation,  and  the  consciousness  of  everything  significant  as 
but  the  fruition  of  prior,  natural  processes  and  desires.  The  novelty 
of  Galileo's  method  lies,  we  may  obviously  say,  in  his  appeal  to 
immediate  experience,  rather  than  to  objects  already  known  through 
definition,  and  immediate  experience  belongs  to  the  individual.  One 
discards,  thus,  all  that  is  authoritative  and  prior,  and  one  appeals 
only  to  that  which  actual  experience  shall  disclose.  The  object  of 
knowledge  itself  must  be  laboriously  and  tentatively  constructed 
out  of  the  growing  material  of  the  individual's  experiences  and 

2Petzoldt:  "Das  Weltproblem  von  positivistischem  Standpunkte  aus,"  p.  151. 
3Cf.  Holt:  "The  Freudian  Wish,"  p.  157. 

[   96   ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

experiments.  Of  course,  one  may  be  thinking  as  yet4  of  no  magical 
creative  power  whereby  something  really  new  accrues  to  the  texture 
of  reality;  it  is  the  idea  of  the  object  as  known,  which  is  to  be  con- 
structed, and  which  is  accordingly  no  prior  possession.  But  this  is 
enough.  It  utters  and  generates  as  well  the  profound  difference  in 
idea  and  in  attitude,  between  possessing  your  world,  and  making 
it,  between  absolutism  and  democracy,  between  feudalism  and 
individualism,  between  status  and  contract. 

So  much  for  the  general  background  and  method  of  modern 
science,  and  the  way  in  which  science  accords  with  the  other  large 
formative  agencies  in  the  modern  era.  Ours  is  the  question  about 
mind  and  its  ideas.  We  have  noted  that  shifting  of  emphasis  from 
the  Platonic  participation  of  ideas  in  real  meaningful  structures  to 
the  later  lodgment  of  ideas  in  the  inner  life  of  conscious  selves. 
Ideas,  although  they  are  still  thought  to  be  in  possession  of  signifi- 
cant structures,  individual  and  historical  rather  than  universal  and 
timeless,  connote  now  life  and  activity,  purpose  and  achievement. 
But  this,  their  status  and  function  within  the  circle  of  ideas  and 
motives  habitual  to  Christianity,  could  not  but  be  profoundly 
altered  by  those  new  questions  and  discoveries  of  modern  science, 
which  we  have  just  described.  That  ideas  should  in  some  deep  sense 
now  come  to  be  viewed  as  dependent  on  natural  processes  rather 
than  as  in  rightful  and  inherent  possession  of  significant  structures, 
so  much  will  be  clear.  But  the  precise  form  in  which  this  large  con- 
ception gradually  took  shape,  will  repay  our  more  careful  consid- 
eration. Any  philosophy  which,  in  a  large  sense,  is  'naturalistic'  is 
the  outcome  of  a  whole-hearted  dependence  upon  and  a  preoccupa- 
tion with  some  body  of  natural  science.  "By  naturalism,"  remarks 
Perry,  "is  meant  the  philosophical  generalization  of  science."  But 
there  are  differences  in  outlook  and  in  temper  according  as  to  which 
group  of  natural  sciences  it  is  which  furnishes  one  with  his  point 
of  departure.  Thus  it  is  obvious  that  physics  and  mechanics  when 
projected  into  a  philosophical  "Weltanschauung"  become  materialism. 
And  such  a  philosophy,  in  spite  of  sharing  certain  common  traits 

4  I  say  "as  yet,"  in  the  light  of  the  later  emergence  of  the  more  magical  sort  of 
creativity — to  wit,  that  of  Schiller  and  of  James,  and  the  now  popular  idea  of  a  world 
"in  the  making." 

[  97  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

with  other  species  of  naturalism,  will  yet  differ  notably  from  an 
outlook  in  philosophy  which  grows  out  of  a  devotion  to  and  a  pre- 
occupation with  the  concerns  of  biology.  Pragmatism  and  instru- 
mentalism  are,  in  this  sense,  naturalistic,  and  they  are  assuredly  no 
mere  continuation  of  historical  materialism.  Though  I  think  that 
pragmatism  can  hardly  lay  claim  to  be  the  sole  and  exclusive  in- 
heritor of  the  new  insight  and  stimulus  which  modern  biology  has 
furnished,  yet,  certainly  with  respect  to  the  problem  of  mind, 
materialism  and  its  way  of  analyzing  the  problem  seems  now  to  most 
of  us  old-fashioned  and  belated.  What  I  mean  here  is  not  only 
to  report  the  judgment  of  a  scientist  who  knows  what  the  problem 
of  mind  really  is,  that  "the  fact  remains  that  science,  like  philosophy, 
cannot  regard  thought  as  the  activities  of  material  systems."5  This 
may  perhaps  still  be  held  to  be  a  debatable  matter.  But  the  theories 
of  conscious  automatism  and  of  parallelism,  even  the  issue  between 
parallelism  and  interactionism  have  lost  some  of  their  interest, 
because  they  result  from  a  way  of  envisaging  the  problem  of  con- 
sciousness solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  mechanical  system. 
They  are  the  outcome  of  asking  what  place,  in  a  world  which  is 
essentially  one  of  physical  push  and  pull  and  energy  transforma- 
tions, what  place  in  such  a  world  mind  can  have.  This  is  as  true  of 
traditional  interactionism  and  of  panpsychism  as  of  epiphenome- 
nalism.  Indeed,  what  J.  S.  Haldane  has  said  of  vitalism  in  biology 
may  be  said  of  interactionism  in  philosophy,  that  it  "is  nothing  but 
the  shadow  cast  by  the  mechanistic  theory  itself — a  shadow  which 
has  only  become  and  could  only  become  deeper  the  longer  the 
mechanistic  theory  has  lasted."6  The  universe  of  discourse  within 
which  the  philosophical  discussion  of  consciousness  now  takes  place 
has  shifted.  And  it  is  the  results  and  the  methods  of  biology  which 
from  the  side  of  science  are  chiefly  responsible.  It  is  the  discovery 
of  living  processes,  of  incessant  adjustment  and  adaptation,  rather 
than  of  sequences  purely  mathematical  or  mechanical  which  has, 
in  recent  years,  been  the  source  of  a  vigorous  philosophical  reaction. 
It  is  in  speaking  of  this  reaction  that  Professor  Woodbridge  remarks, 

5  Lawrence  J.  Henderson :  "The  Order  of  Nature,"  p.  99. 

6  J.  S.  Haldane :  "Organism  and  Environment  as  Illustrated  by  the  Physiology  of 
Breathing."  Quoted  by  the  Reviewer  in  the  Nation  for  June  28,  1917,  p.  764. 

[  98  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

"all  that  is  distinctive,  valuable  and  promising  in  current  philosophy 
is — I  think  it  may  justly  be  said — largely  the  outcome  of  this 
reaction."7 

But,  long  prior  to  nineteenth  century  biology,  there  were  current 
certain  observations  of  the  body  and  of  its  structures  which  are  not 
without  their  significance  here.  Some  distrust  of  all  of  our  natural 
knowledge  and  of  our  metaphysics,  some  suspicion  that  our  sensa- 
tions and  perceptions  cannot  yield  us  trustworthy  knowledge  was 
an  early  result  of  reflection  upon  the  nature  and  origin  of  all  sensa- 
tions. Sense  organs  were  observed  to  stand  between  ourselves  and 
the  outer  world,  and  sense  organs  did  observably  possess  a  structure. 
They  were  not  luminous  and  transparent.  We  obtained  only  such 
reports  of  real  existences  as  might  come  to  us  through  our  sense 
organs;  we  could  but  conjecture  to  what  extent  the  true  images  of 
objects  were  distorted  before  finally  reaching  us.  Now,  just  as  long 
as  it  is  expected  of  our  sensations  and  ideas  that  they  shall  be  ade- 
quate representations  or  copies  of  external  objects,  there  are  only 
two  possible  consequences  of  such  biological  observation  of  our 
sense  organs  as  we  have  just  noted.  Scepticism,  a  thoroughgoing  dis- 
trust of  the  value  of  sensations  for  all  purposes  of  knowledge,  is  one 
result.  Or,  one  might  set  about  to  find  another  vehicle  of  knowledge 
not  subject  to  this  defect.  Such  was  the  course  taken  by  most  of 
the  great  names  in  Greek  philosophy,  Herakleitus  and  the  Eleatics, 
Democritus  and  Plato.  Reason,  nous,  is  not  subject  to  any  such 
limitation  as  are  sensations.  But,  one  may  pertinently  ask,  what 
would  have  resulted  if  the  initial  assumption  which  led  to  scepti- 
cism had  been  called  in  question,  the  assumption,  namely,  that  it  is 
the  function  of  the  bearers  of  knowledge  to  resemble  their  objects? 
What  if  the  proper  concern  of  sensation  is  some  other  task  which 
it  can  well  perform  without  being  at  all  hampered  by  the  structure 
of  sense  organs,  likely  to  distort  the  images  entering  from  without? 
It  might  well  be  the  case  that  our  sensations  and  even  our  ideas 
ought  not  to  be  judged  by  their  ability  to  convey  unspoiled  the  exact 
images  of  some  outer  world;  their  purpose  and  their  function  might 
be  to  yield  power  rather  than  knowledge  (in  any  nai've  sense),  to 
maintain  the  life  and  interests  of  the  organism  rather  than  to  furnish 

7  Journal  of  Philosophy,  etc.,  vol.  14,  p.  378. 

[  99  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

stable  and  'true'  possessions  of  the  mind.  In  principle,  the  entire 
copy  theory  of  knowledge  and  all  its  works  is  discarded  once  it  is 
avowed  that  sensations  and  ideas  are  instruments  of  power  and  of 
control,  and  both  scepticism  and  Platonism  are,  it  would  appear, 
outflanked.  It  was  Francis  Bacon  who,  with  more  enthusiasm  than 
profundity  no  doubt,  saw  clearly  and  made  others  see  the  possibility 
of  a  new  kind  of  "knowledge,"  radically  different  from  the  tradi- 
tional learning  of  the  schools  and  the  church.  Knowledge  simply  is 
power,  and  "the  relief  of  man's  Estate."8  This  Baconian  ideal  of 
knowledge  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  struggling  forces  slowly  at 
work  in  the  economic  and  social  order,  the  dim  discernment  of  the 
possibilities  of  a  free  development  of  men's  activities,  guided  by 
intelligence  and  knowledge.  And,  too,  this  Baconian  ideal  falls  in 
naturally  with  the  interest  of  the  new  science  in  describing  pro- 
cesses, rather  than  in  revealing  the  rational  and  teleological  "why" 
of  things.  For,  if  you  know  how  a  process  occurs,  you  may  be  able 
to  intercede  in  that  process  and  divert  it  to  your  own  aims.  "Human 
knowledge  and  human  power  coincide  because  ignorance  of  the 
cause  hinders  production  of  the  effect,"  as  Bacon  phrases  it. 

But  for  anything  at  all  like  a  complete  development  and  verifica- 
tion of  this  profoundly  modern  conception  of  the  very  nature  of 
knowledge,  one  must  turn  to  the  results  of  modern  biology.  There 
are  two  theses  which,  if  admitted,  lead  rapidly  and  inevitably  to 
certain  large  philosophical  conceptions,  which  are  both  relatively 
novel  and  stimulating.  Indeed  it  is  only  fairly  recently  that  the 
implication  of  these  theses  has  come  home  to  the  philosophical 
imagination.  It  is  the  first  thesis  that  the  central  nervous  system, 
including  of  course  the  brain,  is  first  and  last  an  instrument  of  be- 
havior and  of  survival,  and  not  of  knowledge,  in  any  traditional 
sense  of  that  term.  The  second  thesis  would  maintain  that,  whatever 
in  the  long  run  you  will  hold  to  be  true  about  the  nervous  system, 
you  must  also  hold  to  be  true  about  the  mind  and  its  function,  so 
compelling  is  the  intimacy  between  mind  and  brain.  But  since  this 
second  assumption  is  not  so  clearly  a  matter  of  biological  concern, 
since  it  is  a  philosophical  assumption  and  hence  debatable,  we  may 

8  I  have  used  here  a  few  sentences  taken  from  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address,  printed 
in  the  University  of  California  Chronicle,  vol.  16. 

[    100   ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF 'SELF 

for  the  present  neglect  it,  and  turn  our  attention  to  trie  more  empiri- 
cal matter,  the  view,  namely,  that  the  central  nervous  system  is  an 
instrument  solely  of  action  and  of  behavior.  This  belief  itself  is 
the  outcome  of  two  large  considerations  of  central  biological  im- 
portance, and  of  equal  interest  to  philosophy,  the  "reflex  arc"  con- 
cept, and  Darwinian,  evolutionary  ideas.  The  reflex  arc  concept 
refers  to  that  mechanism  which  connects  sense  organs  and  muscles. 
The  nervous  system  is  a  conveyer  of  impulses  from  receptors  to 
muscles.  It  is  for  the  sake  of  the  appropriate  muscular  response  that 
the  systems  of  reflex  arcs  exist.  The  life  of  any  organism  simply  is  its 
continued  adaptation  through  its  behavior  to  the  demands  made 
upon  it  by  its  environment.  These  demands  must  be  recognized; 
that  is,  there  must  be  the  appropriate  sensitiveness  and  irritability 
to  whatever  in  the  environment  is  of  moment  to  the  interests  and 
fortunes  of  the  organism  in  question.  In  the  second  place,  this 
irritability,  this  impression,  must  be  transmitted  and  discharged 
eventually  into  the  proper  motor  channel.  The  apparatus  which  has 
thus  to  do  with  receiving  the  stimulus,  transmitting  it,  and  convert- 
ing it  into  response  is  the  reflex  arc.  It  is  the  basic  functional  unit 
of  the  life  activities  of  the  organism.  Now  this  is  utterly  common- 
place and  familiar.  Nevertheless  it  is  radical  and  far-reaching.  The 
full  realization  of  this  situation  is  wholesome  for  our  thinking,  not 
so  much  because  of  the  inferences  most  frequently  drawn  from  this 
situation,  inferences  leading  directly  to  instrumentalism  and  be- 
haviorism, but  because  ultimately  it  defines  for  us  certain  alter- 
natives, the  possibility  of  which  is  not  always  kept  in  mind  by  those 
who  suppose  that  all  of  this  has  only  one  possible  outcome  for  our 
philosophy  and  for  our  life. 

Now,  psychology  and  physiology  have  ceased  to  discuss  seriously, 
I  take  it,  whether  the  spinal  cord,  admittedly  composed  of  nothing 
but  the  transmitting  fibers  of  reflex  arcs,  together  with  certain  of 
their  nerve  cells,  is  the  seat  of  consciousness.  It  transmits  stimuli 
from  sense  organs  to  muscles,  and  that  is  its  entire  function.  What- 
ever is  present  in  the  way  of  conscious  feelings  and  sensations  over 
and  above  behavior,  was,  some  time  ago,  relegated  to  the  brain, 
and  more  particularly  to  the  surface  nerve  cells  of  one  region  of  the 
brain,  the  cortex  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  It  was  there  that 


-:.v-  —    ;    JBEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

consciousness,  i.e.,  sensations,  perceptions,  and  feelings  were 
"located."  But  what  earlier  was  seen  to  be  true  of  the  spinal  cord  is 
now  recognized  to  be  true  of  the  entire  brain  structure.  It  is  built 
on  the  same  plan  as  the  spinal  cord.  The  brain,  like  the  cord,  is 
a  complex  aggregate  of  reflex  arc  structures,  of  transmitting  fibers 
(together  with  cell-bodies),  of  sensory  nerves,  motor  nerves,  and 
transmitting  nerve  fibers  connecting  with  the  reflex  arcs  lower  down 
in  the  system.  In  the  words  of  McDougall,  "the  incessant  labors  of 
a  multitude  of  workers  has  revealed  the  fact  that  not  only  the  spinal 
cord,  but  the  whole  of  the  brain,  also,  is  built  upon  the  reflex  plan, 
that  the  whole  of  the  brain  may  properly  be  regarded  as  made  up 
of  a  multitude  of  nervous  loops,  interlacing  and  communicating  with 
one  another,  it  is  true,  in  wonderfully  complex  fashion,  yet  still 
being  essentially  loops  or  long  bye-paths;  each  of  these  diverges 
from  the  afferent  limb  of  some  spinal  reflex  arc  to  ascend  to  the 
brain,  and,  after  traversing  the  brain,  descends  to  join  the  efferent 
or  motor  limb  of  some  spinal  reflex  arc.  .  .  .  Again,  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe,  though  here  we  are  on  less  firm  ground,  that  all 
the  processes  of  the  brain,  even  those  that  accompany  the  most 
abstruse  thought,  conform  to  the  same  fundamental  reflex  type."9 
The  evidence  of  anatomy  is  supported  by  the  evidence  of  embry- 
ology. The  brain  is  but  the  anterior  region  of  the  cord,  which  has 
undergone  certain  quantitative  and  spatial  changes,  an  enormous 
differential  thickening  of  the  walls,  and  a  bending  back  and  forth 
of  its  main  axis.  Structurally  it  is  wholly  continuous  with  the  cord. 
What  now  can  it  mean  to  say  that  consciousness — feelings  and 
sensations — are  actually  localized  within  the  brain,  except  to  say  that 
there  is  some  correspondence  between  the  transmission  of  nervous 
energy  in  the  brain  and  the  presence  in  consciousness  of  certain 
thoughts  and  feelings?  But  that  the  brain  literally  has  some  other 
function  than  that  of  guiding,  under  certain  circumstances,  the 
muscular  response  of  the  organism  to  the  stimuli  of  the  environ- 
ment would  appear  to  be  incredible  in  view  of  the  basic  struc- 
ture of  the  brain.  We  may,  if  we  like,  continue  to  talk  in  terms  of 
parallelism.  But  parallelism  adds  no  other  function  to  the  brain  than 
that  of  guiding  behavior;  what  it  does  is  to  accompany  that  func- 
9 McDougall:  "Mind  and  Body,"  p.  107. 

[    102    ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

tion  of  the  brain  by  another  function,  which  either  occurs  as  an 
unsubstantial  process  or  as  the  function  of  a  mind.  And  is  it  not 
fair  to  say  that  the  issue  of  parallelism  and  interactionism  seems  to 
us  now  old-fashioned;  this  issue  hardly  succeeds  in  stating  for  us 
our  problems  and  our  interests.  Instead  of  talking  about  any  mys- 
terious doubling  of  brain  processes,  any  repetition  of  cortical 
occurrences  in  another  radically  contrasted  dimension,  it  is  vastly 
simpler  to  conceive  of  the  mind,  of  consciousness,  as  literally  identi- 
cal with  certain  kinds  of  bodily  behavior,  those  in  which  the  higher 
nervous  arcs  are  implicated.  Such  is  a  radically  motor  or  behavior 
theory  of  mind.  It  results  from  the  impressive  discovery  everywhere 
within  the  nervous  system  of  nothing  but  instruments  of  active 
response  and  of  behavior.  And  then,  being  assured  of  this  biological 
principle,  it  is  supposed  that  whatever  large  assertions  you  make 
about  the  nervous  system  you  will  make  about  the  mind.  The  mind 
can  have  no  other  essential  function  than  that  which  characterizes 
the  nervous  system. 

In  addition  to  the  reflex-arc  concept  and  all  that  it  connotes,  there 
is  the  steady  impact  of  Darwinian,  evolutionary  ideas.  These  ideas 
impel  us  to  think  of  all  that  any  organism  has  or  does  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  survival  of  the  organism  and  its  kind  in  the  struggle 
for  existence.  To  be  sure  we  no  longer,  for  the  most  part,  view  the 
conditions  and  qualities  which  make  for  survival  with  as  much 
simplicity  and  crudeness  as  formerly.  We  are  not  so  likely  to  set 
over  against  each  other  in  such  sharp  opposition  the  cosmic  process 
and  the  moral  process  as  did,  for  instance,  Huxley.  Nevertheless, 
from  any  biological  and  evolutionary  standpoint,  it  is  not  what  mind 
is,  but  what  it  does,  what  results  from  mind  in  the  form  of  be- 
havior, that  alone  counts.  Nature  can  care  for  nothing  else.  We 
may  even  depart  as  far  from  traditional  biological  naturalism  as 
Hobhouse  has  done  and  say  that  although  mind  may  have  come  into 
existence  simply  as  an  instrument  of  biological  survival,  neverthe- 
less it  "ceases  to  be  limited  by  the  conditions  of  its  genesis."10  Its 
destiny  is  to  secure  mastery  and  control  over  all  of  the  conditions 
of  life;  it  is  the  means  whereby  Humanity  shall  organize  its  own 
life  and  world.  Even  so,  from  this  larger  and  far  more  liberal  evolu- 

10  Hobhouse:  "Development  and  Purpose,"  p.  u. 

[  103  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

tionary  concept  of  Hobhouse,  the  important  thing  about  mind- 
yes,  the  only  thing  that  counts — is  the  behavior,  the  correlations 
and  syntheses  which  mind  is  responsible  for.  One  may,  of  course, 
still  say  that  in  order  that  the  organism  may  adapt  its  behavior  suc- 
cessfully to  the  requirements  imposed  upon  it,  whether  conceived 
in  terms  of  sheer  struggle  or  in  broader  terms,  the  organism  must 
possess  some  knowledge  of  the  situation  and  the  needs  which  con- 
front it.  Only  if  the  information,  the  real  knowledge  conveyed  by 
sensation,  for  instance,  is  fairly  adequate,  can  there  be  any  likeli- 
hood of  effective  adaptation  and  hence  survival.  Yet  it  is  not  difficult 
to  suppose  some  possibility  of  divergence  between  sensations  which 
are  adequate  to  reveal  and  to  know  the  outer  world  and  those  sensa- 
tions which  but  serve  successfully  to  initiate  the  response  of  the 
organism.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  imagine  here  some  real  clash  of  in- 
terests and,  so  to  speak,  a  divided  purpose  in  the  life  of  sensations. 
Shall  sensation  set  about  to  reveal  the  entire  situation,  or  just  those 
elements  which  are  of  immediate  "practical"  import?  Shall  it  survey 
its  world  with  impartiality,  or  shall  it  serve  the  master  who  first 
called  it  into  being,  and  who,  with  the  increasing  complexity  of 
struggle  and  of  life,  more  and  more  claims  its  undivided  allegiance  ? 
And  if  it  be  but  the  instrument  of  the  organism,  whether  of  the 
single  biological  unit  or  of  the  social  whole  of  humanity,  shall  we 
trust  all  that  it  tells  us  ?  How  early,  in  the  evolutionary  series,  does 
special  pleading  arise?  And  if  such  queries  as  these  are  pertinent  in 
the  case  of  sensations,  they  are  much  more  so  in  the  case  of  ideas. 
For,  ideas  lie  further  along  in  the  process  of  transition  from  sensa- 
tion to  response.  They  arise  when  overt  behavior  is  delayed,  or 
is  only  incipient.  Ideas  are  more  remote  from  the  environment,  and 
from  its  literal  impressions;  they  are  nearer  the  vital  source  of  that 
which  calls  sensations  into  being,  namely,  the  necessities  of  action 
and  the  desire  for  survival.  Ideas  would,  then,  be  less  "true"  than 
sensations  in  any  meaning  of  the  word  "true"  except  the  instru- 
mental meaning. 

Whatever  may  be  our  final  reckoning  with  these  motives  which 
originate  in  the  study  of  modern  biology,  they  inspire  us  with  a 
cumulative  doubt  concerning  the  inherent  validity  of  our  mind's 
ideas.  They  have  operated  steadily  to  convert  supposedly  stable  and 

[  104  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

objective  possessions  of  the  mind  into  natural  processes,  instru- 
ments and  deposits  of  vital  life  histories.  They  have  made  us  hesitant 
and  sceptical  about  whatever  may  lie  "in  front  of"  our  ideas,  possible 
material  for  the  mind's  genuine  appropriation  and  possession.  They 
lead  us  to  stress  only  those  relations  in  which  the  mind  and  all  its 
contents  are  viewed  as  the  utterance  and  the  instrument  of  the 
matter-of-fact  energies  of  nature  and  of  life.  And  we  are  led  con- 
fidently to  say  of  an  idea,  not  that  it  participates  in  and  embodies 
a  significant  structure,  resident  within  reality,  but  that  it  is  "the 
projected  shadow  of  an  unaccomplished  action."11 

The  chapter  in  Santayana's  "Life  of  Reason"  on  How  Thought 
is  Practical  is  an  eloquent  statement  and  summary  of  this  conception 
of  the  life  of  mind.  "Nothing  is  more  natural,"  so  he  writes,  "or 
more  congruous  with  all  the  analogies  of  experience  than  that  ani- 
mals should  feel  and  think.  The  relation  of  mind  to  body,  of  reason 
to  nature,  seems  to  be  actually  this:  when  bodies  have  reached  a 
certain  complexity  and  vital  equilibrium,  a  sense  begins  to  inhabit 
them  which  is  focussed  upon  the  preservation  of  that  body  and 
on  its  reproduction.  This  sense,  as  it  becomes  reflective  and  expres- 
sive of  physical  welfare,  points  more  and  more  to  its  own  persist- 
ence and  harmony,  and  generates  the  Life  of  Reason.  Nature  is 
reason's  basis  and  theme;  reason  is  nature's  consciousness;  and, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  that  consciousness  when  it  has  arisen, 
reason  is  also  nature's  justification  and  goal.  .  .  .  Now  the  body  is 
an  instrument,  the  mind  its  function,  the  witness  and  reward  of  its 
operation.  Mind  is  the  body's  entelechy,  a  value  which  accrues  to 
the  body  when  it  has  reached  a  certain  perfection,  of  which  it  would 
be  a  pity,  so  to  speak,  that  it  should  remain  unconscious;  so  that 
while  the  body  feeds  the  mind  the  mind  perfects  the  body,  lifting 
it  and  all  its  natural  relations  and  impulses  into  the  moral  world, 
into  the  sphere  of  interests  and  ideas."12  Shall  we  wonder  that,  if 
men  are  convinced  that  this  is  the  whole  story  about  mind,  and  if 
they  are  also  sensible  of  its  implications,  they  should  raise  the  prob- 
lem of  truth  and  of  knowledge?  Can  an  idea  which  "is  a  private 
echo  and  response  to  ambient  motions,"  which  is  but  "the  voice  of 

11  Jane  Harrison:  "Ancient  Art  and  Ritual,"  p.  53. 

12  "Reason  in  Common  Sense,"  pp.  205-206. 

[  105  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

the  body's  interests,"  can  such  an  idea  possess  any  outgoing  refer- 
ence, or  participate  in  any  structure  which  it  shall  really  know?  And 
how  far  such  incipient  doubt  may  eat  into  all  our  philosophical 
conceptions  and  even  our  scientific  theories  may  be  worth  inquiring 
into.  Darwin  seems  to  have  sensed  the  situation  with  his  accustomed 
penetration.  Speaking  of  the  gradual  decline  in  his  mind  of  a  belief 
in  a  First  Cause,  he  remarks  upon  his  doubt,  "can  the  mind  of  man 
which  has,  as  I  fully  believe,  been  developed  from  a  mind  as  low  as 
that  possessed  by  the  lowest  animals,  be  trusted  when  it  draws  such 
general  conclusions?"13  I  cite  this,  of  course,  not  because  of  the 
particular  idea  to  which  it  makes  reference,  but  because  of  the 
larger  doubt  which  is  here  uttered.  Granted, — so  may  we  expand 
the  latent  doubt — that  mind  and  ideas  originated  in  the  life  service 
of  humble  organisms.  Granted  that,  throughout  their  long  history, 
they  have  always  been  bound  up  with  the  needs,  the  adaptations  of 
organisms  existing  always  in  a  local  and  particular  environment. 
Ideas,  then,  can  be  relevant  only  to  the  particular  organism  and  the 
local  situation  within  which  they  have  arisen.  They  utter  the  life 
needs  of  such  struggling  organisms.  How  can  they  also  be  expected 
to  "draw  general  conclusions,"  to  encompass  anything  of  universal 
import,  to  participate  in  anything  absolute  or  eternal?  Indeed,  how 
do  they  know  anything  whatever? 

But  besides  biology,  there  are  the  historical  and  the  social 
sciences.  These  have  steadily  exerted  a  pressure  upon  our  beliefs 
and  our  sentiments,  our  habits  of  thought  and  our  judgments  of 
value  analogous  to  that  which  has  been  due  to  biology.  Just  as  the 
influence  of  biology  has  operated  to  withdraw  mind  and  ideas  from 
participation  in  or  identity  with  significant  structures  and  to  make 
them  a  prolongation  of  organic  processes,  so  the  historical  and  social 
sciences  have  likewise  contributed  to  a  retreat  and  an  isolation  of 
mind.  It  is  with  the  status  and  the  meaning  of  values  and  what  we 
earlier  spoke  of  as  "practical  objects,"  that  historical  studies  have 
been  more  particularly  concerned.  Just  as  biology  leads  us  to  view 
every  idea  as  a  function  of  an  organic  brain  process,  so  historical 
insight  and  social  psychology  lead  us  to  regard  the  'mores'  of  a 
group,  their  preferences,  loyalties,  and  conscious  ideals  as  functions 

13  Quoted  by  Henderson :  "The  Order  of  Nature,"  p.  207. 

[  106  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

of  specific  life  conditions.  These  specific  interests  lie  behind  our 
judgments  of  value  and  our  loyalties.  The  apprehension  of  values 
ceases  to  be,  then,  any  possession  of  or  participation  in  an  objective 
good  by  the  mind;  it  becomes  rather  the  utterance  and  projection 
of  the  basic  exigences  of  our  existence.  Values  become  intelligible 
only  from  below.  Devotion  to  an  object  comes  to  signify  no  appre- 
hension of  any  inherent  worth  residing  in  the  object,  in  that  which 
the  desire  faces  and  which  it  may  hope  to  possess.  If  we  still  think 
that  our  desires,  our  loyalties,  and  our  devotions  look  ahead  to  their 
objects  whose  worth  shall  justify  them,  we  suffer  from  the  old 
illusion.  In  truth,  we  are  told,  these  activities  and  propensities,  the 
objects  of  all  our  strivings  are  but  mirrors  in  which  are  reflected 
the  real  forces,  the  brute  and  basic  necessities  of  our  existence  which 
lie  behind  them.  In  the  words  of  a  recent  exponent  of  such  ethical 
naturalism  "of  course  it  is  a  fact  that  devotion  may  breed  the  illu- 
sion that  the  object  of  devotion  is  intrinsically  precious;  but  it  is 
perverse  to  explain  the  devotion  by  the  illusion  rather  than  the 
illusion  by  the  devotion."14  Now  it  is  obvious  that  in  relinquishing 
the  thought  of  any  influence  flowing  from  the  intrinsic  worth  of  the 
object  of  devotion,  that  devotion  becomes  an  utterly  matter-of-fact 
and  contingent  event.  It  becomes  a  natural  process  and,  like  all 
natural  events,  one  has  said  all  that  is  to  be  said  about  it,  one  has 
explained  it,  when  the  causal  series  of  which  it  forms  an  element 
becomes  unravelled.  And  who  has  not  felt  some  shock  when  he  has 
first  come  to  realize  that  all  of  his  own  cherished  ideals  and  prefer- 
ences are  the  outcome  of  his  own  interests,  equipment,  and  tradi- 
tions, and  that  every  opposing  ideal  and  loyalty  has  also  its 
generating  circumstances  which  explain  and  justify  it  as  well?  For, 
having  denied  any  objective  worth  to  the  objects  of  our  loyalties 
(other  than  that  which  reflects  our  matter-of-fact  desires)  whatever 
explains  our  practical  ideals  will  now  "justify"  them.  And  how  acci- 
dental, how  capricious  and  contingent  do  our  loyalties  seem  when 
viewed  solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  energies  which  precede 
them  and  of  which  they  are  but  the  utterance.  Do  I  express  a  prefer- 
ence for  one  cause  rather  than  another,  for  one  nation,  one  religion, 

14  E.  M.  M'Gilvary:  "The  Warfare  of  Moral  Weak,"  Hibbert  Journal,  October, 
1915,  p.  46. 

[  107] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

one  philosophy,  one  race?  Do  I  long  for  the  victory  and  the  domi- 
nance of  these  the  objects  of  my  devoted  loyalty?  Then  consider 
that  the  real  reason  for  this  my  preference  and  my  loyalty  lies  not 
at  all  in  any  inherent  superiority  which  these  ideals  of  mine  may 
possess,  but  solely  in  the  circumstance  that  I  happened  to  be  born 
where  and  when  I  was,  and  have  been  subjected  to  the  pressure  of 
a  particular  group  of  "mores"  and  of  local  interests  and  exigencies. 
It  is  of  this  situation  and  the  illusion  that  it  is  supposed  to  breed 
that  Sir  Henry  Maine  writes:  "Party  has  many  strong  affinities 
with  religion.  Its  devotees,  like  those  of  a  religious  creed,  are  apt 
to  substitute  the  fiction  that  they  have  adopted  it  upon  mature 
deliberation  for  the  fact  that  they  were  born  into  it,  or  stumbled 
into  it."15  And  William  James,  too,  has  uttered  substantially  the 
same  judgment  in  words  which  may  be  placed  beside  those  which 
we  have  just  quoted.  "Everyone,"  says  James,  "is  prone  to  claim 
that  his  conclusions  are  the  only  logical  ones,  that  they  are  neces- 
sities of  universal  reason,  they  being  all  the  while,  at  bottom,  acci- 
dents more  or  less  of  personal  vision  which  had  far  better  be  avowed 
as  such."16  In  short,  under  the  influence  of  both  biology  and  of  the 
historical  and  social  sciences,  we  are  led  to  interpret  every  value 
judgment  as,  in  truth,  affirming  the  existence  of  what,  in  a  large 
sense,  may  be  called  an  interest.  The  judgment  X  is  valuable,  i.e., 
good  or  right,  is  but  a  language  form  in  which  an  actual  interest 
which  desires,  wants  or  requires  X,  finds  utterance.  The  value  which 
the  judgment  seemingly  ascribes  to  the  object  which  is  declared 
to  be  worthful  is  but  the  projection  of  the  interest,  the  conatus,  the 
striving  and  the  activity  of  some  living  structure.  Sumner  compares 
all  of  our  value  judgments  to  clouds  driven  here  and  there  by  the 
winds.  "So  it  is,"  he  says,  "with  the  folkways  and  the  attendant 
philosophy  and  ethics.  They  conform  to  the  interests  which  arise 
in  the  existing  conjuncture,  and  that  is  all  the  sense  they  have."17 
Now  this  is  the  real  "ego-centric"  perplexity,  that  our  judgments 

15  "The  Nature  of  Democracy,"  p.  100. 

16  «A  Pluralistic  Universe,"  p.  10.  A.  J.  Balfour  has  expressed  the  essence  of  all 
these  considerations  in  the  phrase,  "Scratch  an  argument,  and  you  find  a  cause."  Cf. 
the  entire  passage  in  "Humanism  and  Theism,"  p.  61. 

17  Quoted  by  Keller :  "Societal  Evolution,"  p.  248. 

[  108  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

should  seek  to  envisage  some  inherent  quality  or  aspect  of  the  real 
world  and  yet  should  but  succeed  in  giving  expression  to  an  interest 
which  exclusively  belongs  to  the  vital  interest  whose  judgment  it  is. 
Such  naturalism,  which  is  the  generalization  of  the  results  of  science, 
turns  out  to  be  the  real  subjectivism.  And  let  us  not  forget  that  what 
is  here  said  about  our  value  judgments  must  also  apply  to  our  theo- 
retical judgments.  For  they,  too,  are  in  essence  judgments  concern- 
ing the  knowledge  value  of  our  theoretical  ideas.  If  the  judgment 
of  value  is  really  the  affirmation  of  an  existing  interest,  the  judg- 
ment of  reality  is  but  the  affirmation  of  an  existing  belief,  or  pro- 
pensity to  believe.  Just  as  the  actual  interest  is  the  foundation  and 
the  standard  to  which  the  value  must  conform,  so  the  reality  believed 
in  is  measured  by  the  belief,  and  not  the  belief  by  the  reality.  All 
this  is  surely  far  removed  from  anything  at  all  realistic;  it  is  the 
confession  of  remoteness  and  of  isolation.  The  mind's  ideas  and 
judgments  really  summarize  that  which  lies  behind  them.  What  the 
mind  may  suppose  itself  to  know,  what  ideas  seem  to  terminate  in 
as  their  objects  are  but  the  projected  shadows  of  the  body  and  of 
the  life  interests  of  some  social  group. 

That  this  tendency  to  view  ideas  simply  as  prolongations  of  prior 
natural  processes  does  result  in  subjectivism  may  be  seen  in  an- 
other way.  Subjective  idealism,  of  the  Berkeleyan  type,  is  the  result 
of  a  far-reaching  confusion  between  the  object  of  a  perception  or 
of  an  idea,  and  its  stimulus.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that,  if  we  speak  of 
nature  at  large,  we  may  say  that  "nature  is  at  once  the  system  of 
objects  that  we  perceive  and  the  system  of  stimuli  whereby  we  per- 
ceive them."  But  it  does  not  follow  that  a  particular  stimulus  and 
object  coincide.  In  fact,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  place,  it  is  prob- 
ably never  the  case  that  one  and  the  same  entity  is  both  stimulus 
and  object  at  the  same  time.  The  author  from  whom  I  have  just 
quoted  is  right  when  he  goes  on  to  say  that,  "we  are  always  wrong 
in  identifying  any  object  of  sensation  or  perception  with  the  stimulus 
that  produces  it."18  The  train  of  ideas  which  leads  to  subjective 
idealism  would  appear  to  be  essentially  as  follows.  The  only  access 
which  I  have  to  the  objects  in  my  environment  is  through  sense 
organ,  nerve  structures,  and  brain.  The  avenue  from  the  pencil 

18  Mitchell:  "Structure  and  Growth  of  the  Mind,"  p.  156. 

[   109  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

before  me  to  my  perception  of  the  pencil  leads  from  the  stimulation 
of  the  retina  by  light  waves  reflected  from  the  pencil  through  sen- 
sory nerve  and  optic  lobes  in  the  brain.  The  disturbance  in  the  optic 
center  is  then  thought  of  as  the  "cause"  of  my  perception.  But  since 
it  and  not  the  pencil  is  the  immediate  cause  of  the  perception  and 
since  the  effect  can  never  exceed  the  cause  or  contain  more  than 
the  cause,  what  is  actually  perceived  is  no  real  pencil,  but  only 
some  modification  of  myself,  my  brain  (or  my  consciousness).  What 
Professor  Kemp  Smith  has  said  is  literally  true  and  is  of  the  utmost 
importance.  "The  belief  that  sensations  are  mechanically  generated 
through  brain  processes  is  the  sole  originating  cause  of  subjective 
idealism."19 

Now  such  an  approach  to  the  mind  and  its  perceptions  may  fairly 
be  spoken  of  as  a  back-door  approach.  What  seems  to  be  a  knowl- 
edge of  an  object  which  lies  in  front  of  the  mind  is  shown  to  be  but 
the  resultant  of  a  brain  activity  arousing  the  idea  from  behind.  The 
significance  of  ideas  comes  then  to  lie  in  the  vital  processes  which 
generate  them.  The  meaning  of  value  lies  in  the  existing  "interest" 
of  which  it  is  the  spokesman  and  the  echo.  Every  ideal  derives  its 
significance  from  the  solid  foundation  of  life's  actual  processes,  the 
matter-of-fact  desires  and  interests  of  the  organisms,  individuals 
and  groups,  who  live  and  struggle,  compete  and  conquer.  These 
existing  interests  and  desires,  providing  only  they  are  victorious 
and  come  to  prevail,  justify  the  ideals  and  values  which  they  gene- 
rate. Might  does  make  right.  The  Is  does  determine  the  Ought. 
Accepted  ideals  are  always  but  abstractions  from  accomplished  fact. 
I  quote  again  from  an  article  which  has  set  forth  this  in  one  sense 
utterly  realistic  doctrine  of  ideals  and  of  values  in  its  most  plausible 
form:  "The  adjustments  of  sentiments  and  emotions  to  what  has 
become  the  established  order  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  factors 
in  moral  history.  Mohammedanism  fought  its  way  into  Africa  by 
the  sword.  In  a  few  generations  it  flourished  there  by  the  devoted 

19  Philosophical  Review,  1908,  p.  144.  Note  also  the  following  from  Sellars:  "Criti- 
cal Realism,"  p.  9.  "We  begin  with  the  belief  that  the  physical  object  seen  is  outside 
the  body  and  we  end  with  the  proof  if  not  the  conviction  that  what  we  do  actually 
perceive  immediately  is  the  brain  as  it  is  affected  by  the  outside  world  through  the 
sense  organs  themselves." 

[  no  ] 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

acceptance  of  those  who  sprang  from  its  deadliest  enemies.  Tradi- 
tion as  well  as  trade  follows  the  flag.  This  is  what  gives  extreme 
significance  to  the  world's  greatest  battles.  Had  the  Persians  won 
at  Marathon  or  the  Turks  at  Lepanto  and  Vienna,  and  had  they 
followed  up  their  victory,  the  moral  history  of  Europe,  with  its 
accompanying  ideals,  would  have  been  incalculably  different.  Might 
long  enough  continued  wins  recognition  as  right,  until  overthrown 
by  a  greater  might  meanwhile  gathering  strength.  If  we,  looking 
back  upon  the  course  of  history,  decline  to  acknowledge  that  in  any 
particular  case  might  was  right,  it  is  because  another  might  has 
meanwhile  arisen  and  brought  our  sentiments  into  accord  with  its 
sway;  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  new  ideals  that  have  thus 
triumphed  we  condemn  what  was  once  victorious.  Naturally  we  use 
our  own  ideals  in  our  judgments;  but  we  are  likely  to  forget  that 
these  ideals  are  in  great  measure  the  outcome  of  just  the  kind  of 
victory  which  in  the  case  we  condemn  we  deplore  as  the  triumph 
of  might  over  right.  Such  a  judgment  is  nothing  but  the  shadow  of 
a  new  might  cast  back  over  what  formerly  stood  bathed  in  the  light 
of  another  ideal.7'20 

I  do  not  now  raise  the  large  question  as  to  the  validity  of  this 
interpretation  of  our  ideals  and  our  value  judgments.  It  is  certainly 
not  to  be  dismissed  lightly.  We  shall  accord  to  it  a  large  measure 
of  truth  and  of  significance.  What  especially  deserves  notice  here  is 
that,  however  "realistic"  this  account  of  our  values  may  appear  to 
be,  however  much  it  seeks  to  base  the  mind's  ideals  upon  real  facts 
(it  is  indeed  a  supreme  instance  of  Real-Politik  and  Real-Ethik) 
nevertheless  it  is  in  truth  a  form  of  subjectivism,  precisely  upon  a 
par  with  subjectivism  in  the  theory  of  knowledge.  It  places  the 
meaning  and  the  worth  of  ideas  not  in  objects,  but  in  the  stimuli 
which  produce  them.  Or,  perhaps  more  accurately,  it  views  the 
object,  the  terminus  ad  quern  simply  as  the  "shadow"  or  the  mere 
name  of  what  is  in  truth  the  generating  stimulus,  the  real  force,  the 
natural  process,  the  Interest  which  lies  behind  and  which  is  the 
terminus  a  quo.  We  are  dealing  throughout  with  a  retreat  of  mind 
and  of  ideas  from  significant  structures  which  they  possess  or  in 

20  E.  B.  M'Gilvary:  "The  Warfare  of  Moral  Ideals."  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  14,  pp. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

which  they  may  participate.  Ideas  become  the  utterances  and  the 
instruments  of  organic  and  of  social  Interests,  the  symbols  of  de- 
sires and  of  activities  striving  for  existence  and  for  supremacy.  All 
of  the  philosophies  which  view  the  matter  thus — behaviorism  and 
pragmatic  instrumentalism — are  philosophies  of  an  age  which  no 
longer  has  significant  structures  to  possess,  to  contemplate  and  to 
enjoy,  an  age  which  devotes  its  energies  to  activity,  the  release  of 
desire,  to  struggle  and  to  war.  Pragmatism  is  the  intellectual  form 
of  modern  capitalism. 

There  is  a  modern  philosopher  who  lives  and  writes  at  a  time 
when  these  formative  forces  of  the  modern  age  are  beginning  dis- 
tinctly to  reveal  themselves.  His  philosophy  is  the  first  profound 
formulation  of  the  vast  problem  which  everywhere  results  from  the 
historical  transformation  from  the  idea  systems  of  Platonism  and 
of  Christianity  to  those  of  modern  industry  and  democracy,  issuing 
in  the  release  of  desire  and  the  discovery  of  nature.  That  vast  prob- 
lem concerns  the  status  of  significant  structures.  What  function  they 
performed  in  the  older  world  of  Platonism  and  Christianity  we  have 
seen.  They  were  simply  and  utterly  real,  awaiting  the  mind's  appro- 
priation, and  informing  the  mind  with  truth.  The  world  which  is 
reflected  in  the  philosophical  analysis  of  Hume  is  a  vastly  different 
world.  It  is  one  in  which  all  of  the  structures  which  confront  the 
mind,  which  the  mind's  ideas  may  appropriate  and  possess,  are 
wholly  lacking  in  significance.  They  are  only  bare  "impressions." 
They  are  both  incoherent,  discontinuous,  hence  lacking  in  theoretical 
meaning,  and  they  are  also  unfit  for  any  practical  activity  whatever. 
The  mind  can  neither  know  nor  act  within  the  world  of  impressions, 
yet  impressions  are  all  that  are  given  to  the  mind.  Impressions  must 
be  transformed  and  must  be  added  to  before  they  become  significant 
and  livable.  It  is  some  activity  of  mind — in  the  last  analysis  custom 
and  imagination — which  make  over  impressions  into  passably  signifi- 
cant structures.  The  permanence  in  things,  the  regular  sequences 
and  causal  relations  in  nature  upon  which  we  depend  in  our  practical 
dealings  with  her,  the  continuity  in  purposes  whereby  a  relatively 
stable  self  and  society  are  built  up,  all  these  bearers  of  significance 
and  meaning  are  read  into  impressions  by  'custom  and  imagination.' 
They  are  really  fictions,  existing  only  through  convention  and  arti- 


THE  ISOLATION  OF  MIND  AND  OF  SELF 

fice,  not  in  nature.  But  the  central,  persistent  problem  thereby 
comes  into  full  light.  The  real  world,  that  which  is  given  to  man 
to  possess  and  to  know,  is  without  significance  and  coherence,  and 
unfit  for  him  to  live  in.  Within  the  world  of  impressions,  he  cannot 
act  because  there  are  no  coherent  continuities  and  no  significant 
structures.  Man  must  make  his  world.  He  must  reconstruct  and 
transform  the  Given,  the  world  of  impressions.  But  the  world  which 
results  is  unreal  and  fictitious.  In  becoming  significant  it  becomes 
artificial.  The  disease  of  subjectivity  is  the  price  which  we  pay  for 
meaning,  coherence,  and  significance.  Here,  then,  is  our  dilemma: 
the  real  world  is  impossible  to  live  in  and  the  world  which  alone  is 
livable  is  a  fictitious  and  unreal  one.  No  wonder  does  Hume  say,  "I 
dine,  and  play  a  game  of  backgammon,  I  converse,  and  am  merry 
with  my  friends;  and  when  after  three  or  four  hours'  amusement, 
I  would  return  to  these  speculations,  they  appear  so  cold  and 
strain'd,  and  ridiculous,  that  I  cannot  find  in  my  heart  to  enter  into 
them  farther."  This  is  hardly  any  ordinary  scepticism;  it  is  an 
honest  and  penetrating  confession  of  the  problem  which  emerges 
when  ideas  no  longer  participate  in  significant  structures,  but  are 
viewed  solely  as  the  projections  of  the  matter-of-fact  processes  of 
nature. 

In  the  social  philosophy  of  Hume's  contemporary,  across  the 
channel,  we  find  essentially  the  same  utterance  and  the  same  con- 
fession, though  the  inference  which  is  drawn  is  different.  Certainly 
in  his  earlier  and  more  radical  essays  Rousseau  regards  the  struc- 
tures of  civilization  as  both  superficial  and  artificial,  overlaid  upon 
something  real  and  primitive,  and  alone  worthy  of  man's  legitimate 
possession  and  devotion.  Man  has  contrived,  consciously  or  other- 
wise, most  of  the  structures  of  his  political  and  social  life.  Just  in  so 
far  as  he  has  thus  made  them,  do  they  diverge  from  that  which  nature 
offers  man.  Just  as  Hume  sees  that  the  world  which  man  actively 
inhabits  is  not  the  world  of  impressions  which  he  finds,  but  the 
world  created  by  custom  and  imagination,  so  Rousseau  sees  the  vast 
difference  between  these  primitive  and  unspoiled  things  which  man 
finds  in  nature,  and  the  elaborate  artefacts  which  he  imposes  upon 
nature.  Let  man  strip  away  these  additions  due  to  sheer  conven- 
tion— custom  and  imagination — and  return  to  nature.  But  there  is 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

a  large  difference  between  Hume  and  Rousseau.  Hume  sees  that 
what  man  literally  finds  in  his  world,  prior  to  all  which  he  imputes 
to  it,  is  no  world  fit  for  him  to  live  in.  Although  all  that  imagination 
adds  to  impressions  is  fictitious,  yet  they  alone  provide  us  with 
significance  and  a  basis  for  all  of  our  undertakings,  theoretical  and 
practical.  Rousseau,  in  his  more  extreme  moods  surely,  thinks  it 
quite  possible  to  content  ourselves  with  what  we  find,  to  enjoy  that, 
unspoiled  by  artifice.  Hume  is  here  the  more  discerning  and  the 
more  profound.  He  is  the  better  spokesman  of  the  modern  spirit. 
Platonic  and  historical  significant  structures,  objects  of  knowledge 
and  of  loyalty  have,  under  the  stress  of  the  forces  which  have  made 
the  modern  world,  tended  to  be  replaced  by  natural  processes  and 
vital  activities.  These  activities  fashion  and  refashion  our  world. 
Our  world  is  indeed  an  age  of  democracy  and  of  science.  What  is 
the  status  of  significant  structures  in  our  world?  Are  they  indeed 
subjective  and  fictitious,  or  are  there  any  which  await  our  appro- 
priation and  possession,  inviting  the  mind's  contemplation  and 
participation?  If  there  are  any  such  they  will  need  to  be  defined  and 
to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  all  these  energies  and  habits  of 
thought  which  have  made  the  modern  age.  What  possession  of 
significant  structures  will  make  possible  the  success  of  the  enter- 
prise of  modern  life  —  such  must  be  our  problem.  But  not  until  sub- 
jectivism be  completely  overcome,  both  in  theory  and  in  practice, 
both  in  the  form  of  subjective  idealism  and  of  naturalism,  can  we 
hope  really  to  know  any  significant  structures  or  to  participate  in 
them. 


[  114  ] 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION 
IN  REALITY 

THE  gradual  detachment  of  mind  from  significant 
structures  which  may  be  appropriated  and  possessed, 
the  increasing  disclosure  of  the  mind's  dependence  upon 
matter-of-fact  processes  of  nature  which  generate,  from 
below,  mind  and  all  significant  structures, — this  has 
been  our  theme  thus  far.  This  large  historical  process,  this  migra- 
tion of  ideas,  has  sustained  an  intimate  relation,  we  have  seen,  with 
those  forces  which  together  have  created  the  civilization,  the  temper 
and  the  problems  of  our  own  world,  the  energies  of  democracy,  of 
economic  rationalism  and  of  science.  But  this  retreat  of  mind  from 
its  participation  in  objective  significant  structures,  either  Platonic 
or  historical,  universal  or  individual,  is  familiar  to  us  not  only  in 
the  range  of  our  practical  problems  and  anxieties,  but  in  our  thought 
and  our  philosophy  as  well.  The  resulting  situation,  the  isolation  of 
mind  from  reality,  has  strangely  enough  been  called  the  "cardinal 
principle  of  idealism."  For  we  are  here  dealing  with  what  Caird, 
and  no  doubt  many  others,  have  called  "the  disease  of  subjectivity 
which  has  infected  the  modern  world,"  and  it  has  become  very  fre- 
quent, in  England  and  America  at  least,  to  regard  subjectivism  and 
idealism  as  essentially  synonymous  terms.  There  is  little  profit  in 
objecting  to  a  usage  of  language  which  has,  in  some  measure,  become 
current.  Yet  the  particular  usage  here  in  question  may  conceal  and 
may  foster  certain  erroneous  judgments  not  only  concerning  the 
meaning  of  historical  doctrines  and  systems,  but  concerning  some 
important  issues  of  philosophy  as  well.  Thus,  idealism  is  presumably 
a  doctrine  of  "ideas."  But  what  are  "ideas"?  Ideas  have  frequently 
in  modern  thought  been  conceived  as  essentially  and  solely,  psy- 
chical existences,  states  of  consciousness.  As  such  they  are  not  real 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

and  not  objective.  To  make  such  entities  the  very  stuff  and  texture 
of  reality  is  one  thing.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  to  conceive  ideas 
as  participating  in  or  as  identical  with  real  Forms,  permanent, 
significant  structures,  as  did  the  father  of  idealism.  Now  the  Pla- 
tonic Idea  has  its  legitimate  and  well-attested  descendents  through- 
out the  whole  development  of  European  philosophy,  and  perhaps 
it  is  still  worth  while  trying  to  save  the  name  "idealism"  for  such  as 
these,  and  to  use  the  perfectly  good  term  "subjectivism"  for  the  other 
thing.  What  the  relation  may  be,  historically  and  logically,  between 
these  two  meanings  of  idea  and  of  idealism,  is,  of  course,  a  wholly 
legitimate  and  quite  important  problem.  It  is  with  some  aspects  of 
this  problem  that  this  chapter  will  be  concerned.  For,  one  must  defi- 
nitely settle  his  accounts  with  that  motive  and  movement  in  modern 
thought  which  runs  from  Descartes  to  Berkeley  and  beyond,  from 
cogito,  ergo  sum  to  esse  est  percipi.  But  we  shall  quite  fail  to  see  the 
problem  in  anything  like  its  entirety  if  we  limit  the  field  of  our 
inquiry  to  the  definite  philosophical  movement  which  receives  its 
final  expression  in  the  Berkeleyan  formula.  That  is  indeed  'subjec- 
tivism/ and  it  is  certainly  worthy  of  careful  and  sympathetic  study 
and  appraisal.  But  we  need  also  to  remember  that  that  other  large 
movement,  some  of  whose  aspects  we  surveyed  in  the  last  chapter, 
is  also  a  kind  of  subjectivism.  It  culminates,  we  have  seen,  in  a  with- 
drawal of  ideas  from  significant  structures  and  in  their  consequent 
isolation.  It  is  worth  while  setting  these  two  historical  movements 
side  by  side  and  seeing  how  they  issue  in  a  common  situation  and  a 
common  perplexity.  The  problem  which  runs  from  Descartes  through 
Hume  and  beyond  is  of  course  this:  if  ideas  alone  are  the  vehicles 
and  the  objects  of  knowledge,  what  of  the  knowability  and  the  nature 
of  the  real  world?  At  the  outset  of  this  process  ideas  are  contrasted 
with  real,  independent  entities.  The  latter  can  all  be  doubted  away, 
but  not  so  ideas.  Ideas,  which  alone  are  certain  and  indubitable, 
lack  the  objectivity  and  permanence  of  real  objects,  whereas 
these  latter,  although  possessing  much  more  inherent  solidity  and 
worth,  are  remote  and  may  be  possessed  by  the  mind  only  indirectly 
and  circuitously.  Unquestionably,  for  Descartes,  ideas  have  a  certain 
taint  and  incapacity.  They  are  not  themselves  real  objects,  though 
they  may  become  the  means  whereby  we  know  real  objects.  But  with 

[  116  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

Berkeley  and  Hume,  the  real  world  is  more  and  more  assimilated 
and  identified  with  ideas,  perceptions,  and  impressions.  It  is  as  if, 
reconciled  to  necessity,  one  renounced  the  more  significant,  but  inac- 
cessible structures,  and  contented  himself  with  what  he  actually  did 
possess,  his  own  ideas,  and  then  renamed  these  "reality."  And  this  is 
subjectivism,  isolation,  renunciation.  But  while  this  process  has  been 
going  on  in  philosophy,  something  essentially  analogous  to  it  has 
been  going  on  in  the  world  of  life.  And  that  is  the  impassioned 
discovery  of  nature  and  of  life  itself,  of  impulse,  instinct,  and  desire. 
These  are  vital  energies  which  spring  up  from  below.  Mind,  reason, 
and  ideas  are  the  fruition  of  these  activities,  perhaps  their  instru- 
ment. Individualism,  democracy,  the  new  learning,  the  new  com- 
merce and  industry  of  adventure  and  of  production,  all  alike  spell 
the  liberation  of  the  mind  from  objective  structures  which  are  merely 
to  be  apprehended  and  possessed.  The  mind  with  all  its  deeds  and  its 
ideas  is  intelligible  only  as  the  outcome  and  the  expression  of  some 
vital  interest  of  the  body,  or  of  some  social  class  or  group.  Only 
vaguely  and  imperfectly  does  this  actual  modern  situation  find  an 
articulate  voice  in  philosophy.  By  and  large,  no  doubt,  empiricism 
has  represented  something  of  this  sense  of  freshness,  of  activity,  of 
contact  with  the  soil  of  nature.  It  has  been  the  spokesman  for  individ- 
ualism and  progress,  for  the  freedom  of  man's  achievement  and  his 
control  over  his  world.1  But  a  problem  emerges,  not  essentially 
different  from  the  problem  as  to  the  status  of  the  real  world,  if  Berke- 
ley's formula  be  regarded  as  true.  If  the  entire  life  of  mind  depends 
upon  and  points  back  to  some  particular  structure  and  interest  which 
has  engendered  it  and  which  nourishes  it,  how  can  an  idea  be  "true," 
i.e.,  point  forward  to,  and  disclose  something  of  universal,  indepen- 
dent, and  intrinsic  worth?  Any  whole-hearted  biological  or  social 
theory  of  mind  is  really  a  variety  of  "subjectivism,"  as  much  as  is  the 
outcome  of  the  Descartes-to-Berkeley  movement.  Such  a  biological 
theory  lodges  the  significance  and  the  function  of  mind  wholly  within 
the  life  interests  of  the  here-and-now  particular  organism  or  interest 
which  it  serves.  It  interprets  the  entire  life  and  function  of  mind — 

1  This  larger  social  and  cultural  significance  of  modern  empiricism  is  most  clearly 
brought  to  light  in  the  article  of  Dewey :  "The  Significance  of  the  Problem  of  Knowl- 
edge." University  of  Chicago  Contributions  to  Philosophy,  No.  3. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

including  the  knowledge  function — in  terms  of  the  mind's  relation 
to  some  structure,  economic  interest,  or  bodily  brain,  upon  which 
the  mind  depends.  The  result  is  that  we  may  fittingly  survey  in  one 
group  certain  common  characteristics  of  subjectivism  (Berkeleyan 
"idealism")  and  naturalism.  Otherwise  expressed,  the  relation  be- 
tween the  subjectivism  which  is  latent  in  Descartes  and  explicit  in 
Berkeley,  and  naturalism  would  appear  to  be  this.  Both  are  the  result 
of  a  severance  of  mind  and  its  ideas  from  objective  structures  in 
which  they  participate.  But  where  subjectivism  represents  the  stage 
in  which  ideas  and  perceptions  live,  so  to  speak,  an  unattached  life 
of  their  own,  naturalism  views  ideas  as  attached  to  matter-of-fact 
structures  and  processes  of  nature.  These  structures  lie  on  the 
opposite  side  of  ideas  from  that  on  which  the  intelligible  Platonic 
Forms  were  thought  to  dwell.  The  mind  really  knew  such  Forms, 
and  participated  in  them;  for  naturalism  the  mind  depends  upon  and 
is  the  utterance  of  nature's  processes,  and  that  is  essentially  the 
whole  story.  At  least,  as  for  instrumentalism,  it  is  the  clew  to  the 
whole  story.  We  shall  keep  in  mind,  then,  both  forms  of  subjectivism, 
the  philosophical  movement  initiated  by  Descartes,  and  also  the 
pressure  of  all  those  modern  energies  which  have,  seemingly,  put 
Platonism  and  Christianity  forever  behind  us,  and  which  have  sub- 
stituted for  them  the  motives  of  activity  and  of  experiment,  democ- 
racy and  control. 

We  shall  examine  first  the  more  familiar  meaning  of  subjectivism. 
It  has  become  more  or  less  of  a  commonplace  to  view  much  of 
the  whole  philosophical  development  from  Descartes  on,  till  one 
comes  to  the  recent  radical  philosophical  reforms  of  pragmatism  and 
of  realism,  as  the  outcome  of  a  single  controlling  conception  which 
functions  almost  as  an  axiom  and  which  sets  in  motion  the  entire 
machinery  of  modern  "idealism."  This  fundamental,  organizing  idea 
Professor  Woodbridge  has  fittingly  called  the  "end-term"  conception 
of  the  mind.  The  mind,  according  to  this  basic  assumption,  was  con- 
ceived "as  an  original  capacity  or  receptacle,  endowed  with  certain 
constitutional  powers,  and  needing  the  operation  of  some  alien  or 
resident  factor  to  arouse  it  to  activity.  It  was  the  end  term  of  a  rela- 
tion, the  other  term  of  which  might  be  the  external  world,  another 
mind,  the  divine  being,  or  some  unknown  source  of  excitation.  The 

[  "8  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

important  end- term  was  the  mind.  .  .  .  This  basal  conception  of 
the  mind  as  an  original  end-term  was  expressed  in  various  forms  and 
different  words,  but  in  them  all  are  discoverable  the  essential  origi- 
nality, isolation,  independence,  and  exclusiveness  of  that  plastic  and 
impressionable  thing  which  through  experience  of  some  sort  comes 
to  possess  consciousness  or  knowledge,  or  to  be  itself  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  world."2 

Now  unquestionably  something  very  like  this  "end- term"  concep- 
tion plays  an  important  role  throughout  the  entire  development  of 
modern  philosophy  from  Descartes  to  Hegel,  and  after  Hegel.  Our 
confusions,  our  difficulties — and  our  "idealism" — are  the  conse- 
quences of  this  fruitful  concept  and  motive.  It  is  not  strange  that 
reform  and  revolt  should  strike  first  and  hardest  at  this  "end- term" 
conception,  and  should  seek  to  interpret  consciousness  in  terms  of  a 
relation,  or  a  process,  a  response,  an  activity.  Such  concepts  strive  to 
connote  integrity,  a  real  and  total  situation,  complex  indeed  because 
the  situation  contains  two  "ends"  and  a  middle,  and  not  merely  a 
single  term  at  the  end  looking  out  into  a  seeming  void.  We  shall  find 
much  to  welcome  and  to  make  our  own  in  the  purpose  of  this  criti- 
cism of  any  purely  "end-term"  situation.  Meanwhile  a  preliminary 
remark  would  appear  worth  making.  The  "end-term"  situation  and 
concept  certainly  does  not  furnish  an  important  or  an  impelling 
motive  within  the  idea  systems  of  Platonism  and  of  Christianity. 
Within  these,  stress  is  laid  upon  significant  structures  or  Forms,  in 
which  mind  and  consciousness  are  to  participate,  and  with  which 
they  are  even  conceived  as  identical.  And  this  holds  true  whether  the 
significant  structures  are  universal  and  intelligible  Forms,  as  in  Pla- 
tonism, or  a  concrete,  historical  life  and  community  as  in  Chris- 
tianity. So  much  was  the  upshot  of  our  earlier  discussion  of  these 
two  syntheses  of  life  and  of  thought.  These  are  both  in  so  far  utterly 
realistic  in  at  least  one  proper  and  important  meaning  of  that  term. 
Within  these  idea  systems  there  is  offered  to  the  mind  something  to 
possess,  to  contemplate,  to  love,  and  to  worship,  and  the  mind's 
proper  function  lies  in  such  possession  and  such  solidarity.  Here  are 
then  motives  and  concepts  which  connote  anything  but  "isolation, 

2  "The  Problem  of  Consciousness,"  in  "Amherst  Studies  in  Philosophy  and  Psychol- 
ogy/' P-  J4o. 

[    "9   ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

independence  and  exclusiveness."  And  just  to  the  extent  to  which 
any  of  these  elements  enter  into  the  structures  of  modern  idealism, 
are  the  very  genuine  and  serious  defects  of  an  "end-term"  conception 
already  in  some  measure  provided  for.  In  other  words,  these  short- 
comings of  the  "end- term"  conception  might  conceivably  be  reme- 
died through  some  return  to  a  philosophy  and  a  culture  based  upon 
the  mind's  solidarity  with  objective  structures  such  as,  in  principle, 
both  Platonism  and  Christianity  were.  Such  might  yield  a  valid  pro- 
gram for  the  "recovery  of  philosophy."  The  problem  is  of  course 
more  than  any  purely  theoretical  issue.  It  touches  the  very  roots  of 
the  organization  of  life  and  of  society,  of  industry,  of  property  and 
of  nations. 

Where  shall  we  look  for  the  emergence  of  the  "end-term"  concept 
of  consciousness  and  hence  of  this  so  dominant  modern  idea  system? 
Of  course  the  concept  exercises  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  char- 
acteristic doctrines  of  Descartes,  and  we  shall  presently  examine 
some  of  them.  But  before  Descartes  there  is  another  thinker  and  an 
idea  which  has  been  well  said  to  mark  the  "very  turning  point  of 
western  speculation."  It  is  Anselm  and  his  ontological  argument  that 
are  here  referred  to.3  What  Anselm's  ontological  argument  really 
expresses  is  first,  the  emergence  of  mind,  of  self -consciousness,  as 
something  conceivably  isolated  and  non-cognitive,  as  something 
which  is  a  potential  "end-term,"  not  linked  of  necessity  to  a  real 
world  in  which  it  participates.  But  the  argument  instantly  rejects 
this  possibility.  It  affirms  that  thought  is  necessarily  linked  to  real 
structures,  and  is  not,  in  its  essential  capacity,  any  mere  floating 
image.  The  argument  expresses,  as  Mr.  Webb  puts  it,  both  "an  incip- 
ient doubt"  and  also  the  instant  settlement  of  the  doubt  by  adhering 
faithfully  to  that  "objectivity  of  attitude  inherited  by  the  middle 
ages  from  antiquity."  Ideas  have  just  begun  to  slip  away  from 
objective  significant  structures,  but  only  enough,  as  yet,  to  formulate 
with  deliberate  self -consciousness  the  argument  that  thought  cannot 
live  a  self-centered,  free  life  of  its  own.  Wherever  there  is  a  total 
thought,  there  is  to  be  found  also,  the  knowledge,  and  the  genuine 
possession  of  reality. 

3  The  expression  is  used  by  Mr.  C.  C.  J.  Webb  in  his  "Studies  in  the  History  of 
Natural  Theology,"  p.  151. 

[    120    ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

With  Descartes,  as  compared  with  Anselm,  the  gap  between  ideas 
and  the  objects  with  which  they  are  linked  has  widened;  doubt  and 
isolation  come  much  more  to  the  front,  and  endure  longer.  Indeed, 
for  Descartes,  such  persistent  isolation  is  itself  essential  in  order  to 
disclose  the  nature  and  the  foundations  of  our  certain  knowledge. 
We  do  well  frequently  to  turn  back  to  the  Cartesian  situation  and 
problem  and  reflect  upon  it.  Here  is  to  be  found  the  main  source  of 
the  whole  "end-term"  conception  of  mind,  of  the  incessant  preoccu- 
pation with  the  problem  of  knowledge,  of  subjectivism  and  of  dual- 
ism. I  turn  to  some  aspects  of  the  Cartesian  argument.  It  is  not,  I 
think,  the  usual  reading  which  shall  here  be  given  of  the  Cogito,  ergo 
sum.  We  shall  see  here  rather  a  motive  for  a  very  genuine  form  of 
realism — if  we  must  use  the  term — at  any  rate,  for  rejecting  heart- 
ily most  of  those  motives  which  culminate  in  the  Berkeleyan  Esse  est 
percipi.  Here  is  the  situation  then.  We  are,  at  the  outset,  to  banish 
from  our  universe  of  discourse  everything  which  may  possibly  be 
doubted.  Nothing  shall  remain  except  the  instrument  of  doubt  itself, 
which,  of  course,  is  an  idea.  But  it  is  an  idea  which  knows  no  real 
object  other  than  itself,  for  everything  other  than  itself  is  by  hypoth- 
esis, not  idea,  not  a  literal  possession  of  the  mind,  and  hence  subject 
to  doubt  and  erasure.  One  says  then  that  no  matter  what  outer,  real 
structures  may  be  doubted  away,  at  least  the  doubt  itself  remains, 
and  the  doubt  is  an  idea,  a  conscious  act  of  the  self.  That  idea,  yes, 
the  self -doubting,  at  least  is  real.  But  this  "at  least"  betrays  us.  For  it 
suggests  irretrievably  that  what  is  still  left  is  not  quite  as  valuable 
for  the  purposes  of  knowledge  as  that  which  one  would  like  to 
possess,  and  the  fable  of  the  fox  and  the  grapes  might  be  cited  to 
advantage.  Moreover,  in  the  logical  experiment  now  being  carried 
out,  our  universe  of  discourse  contains  nothing  but  ideas,  nothing 
but  the  self-conscious  self,  aware  of  its  own  doubt.  But  if  this  is  all 
that  exists  after  doubt  has  removed,  in  our  experiment,  every  real 
object,  then  it  is  to  be  observed  that  there  is  simply  no  point  at  all 
in  calling  that  which  is  left,  the  doubt  itself,  an  "idea''  a  "state  of 
consciousness."  The  concept  of  an  idea  has  been  reached  only  be- 
cause we  first  contrasted  idea  (which  we  at  least  did  possess)  with 
real  objects  which  we  did  not  possess.  The  significance  of  the  adjec- 
tive "conscious,"  or  of  the  noun  "idea"  can  remain  only  as  long  as 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

that  contrast  exists.  But  in  a  universe  of  discourse  where  doubt  has 
done  its  work,  and  which  consequently  contains  no  "real"  objects, 
that  which  remains  simply  is,  and  is  real,  if  you  choose,  but  it  is  no 
longer  "idea"  and  can  no  longer  be  qualified  as  "conscious."  A  single 
fact,  alone  present  to  the  mind,  as  sensation,  or  as  idea,  could  never 
possibly  be  the  object  of  doubt.  Its  reality  and  objectivity  would 
never  be  called  in  question.  And  so  the  epithet  "conscious,"  implying 
that  it  is  at  least  within  my  experience  even  if  it  isn't  a  real  object, 
would  never  come  to  be  applied  to  it.  This,  as  a  theorem  in  psy- 
chology, was  clearly  seen  and  stated  by  James,  and  earlier  by  Spinoza 
from  whom  James  quotes.4  The  interest  in  the  question  which  here 
occupies  James  is  not  quite  our  interest  though  it  is  wholly  pertinent. 
He  is  discussing  the  psychology  of  belief,  and  what  he  points  out  is 
that  "the  sense  that  anything  we  think  of  as  unreal  can  only  come, 
then,  when  that  thing  is  contradicted  by  some  other  thing  of  which 
we  think."  That  is,  the  whole  discussion  here  refers  to  the  world  of 
beliefs.  Within  that  universe  there  must  be  contrast  and  opposition 
in  order  that  doubt  may  emerge.  We  are  here  interested  in  the  uni- 
verse of  existences.  What  we  point  out  is  that  there  is  no  sense  in 
calling  anything  within  that  universe  a  subjective  existence,  an  idea, 
unless  it  is  really  contrasted  with  that  which  is  not  subjective  but 
which  is  real.5  If  we  turn  to  an  analogous  situation,  the  point  may 
become  clearer.  Would  it  be  possible,  let  us  ask,  for  one  in  a  dream 
to  say  about  his  experience  that  the  only  thing  of  which  he  is  certain 
is  that  he  is  dreaming?  Obviously  not.  For,  if  literally  everything 
which  he  possesses  is  a  dream  consciousness,  there  is  no  meaning  in 
degrading  it  by  characterizing  it  as  dreaming.  Some  other  present 
possession  of  his  mind  there  must  be  which  he  knows  and  which 
serves  as  a  standard  with  reference  to  which  he  may  judge  that  all 

4  "Psychology,"  vol.  2,  p.  288.  James  refers  to  the  passage  of  Spinoza  in  Book  2 
of  the  "Ethics."  Cf.  also  the  following  sentence  from  the  essay  "On  the  Improvement 
of  the  Understanding":  "If  there  were  only  one  idea  in  the  mind,  whether  that  idea 
were  true  or  false,  there  would  be  no  doubt  or  certainty  present,  only  a  certain 
sensation." 

5  One  of  the  earlier  articles  of  Perry  may  be  referred  to  as  an  interesting  elaboration 
of  this  thesis,  in  so  far  sound,  I  believe,  though  we  shall  not  assent  to  Perry's  infer- 
ences from  this  situation.    "Conceptions  and  Misconceptions  of  Consciousness,"  Psy- 
chological Review,  1905. 

[    122    ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

of  his  other  experiences  are  but  dreams.  Again  take  this  case.  Sup- 
pose, in  the  light  of  the  instability  of  our  knowledge,  of  the  constant 
modification  of  theories  and  assumptions  which  the  history  of 
science  and  of  philosophy  exhibits,  suppose  one  is  led  to  infer  that 
every  judgment  which  claims  to  be  true  is  only  at  best  probable.  The 
probability  may  range  from  a  sheer  unwarranted  guess  to  the  highly 
probable  laws  of  mechanics.  All  knowledge  is  probable  then.  But  if 
all  that  we  possess  is  probability,  again  it  must  be  asked,  what  could 
the  very  concept  of  probability  mean?  It  acquires  a  definite  meaning 
only  through  contrast  with  certainty.  It  is  because  some  things  are 
known  and  are  certain,  that  other  judgments  and  beliefs  can  be  but 
probable.  Now  in  each  of  these  situations  it  is  to  be  observed  that  our 
universe  of  discourse  is  really  richer  and  more  complex  than  it 
appears  at  the  outset  to  be.  It  is  a  universe  of  discourse  in  which 
doubt  has  not  purged  away  everything  real,  leaving  only  bare  ideas, 
nor  one  in  which  only  the  dream  self  remains  after  the  real  self  has 
utterly  vanished,  nor  can  it  be  a  universe  in  which  all  truths  are  but 
probable. 

To  say  this  is  not  to  dispute  either  the  truth  or  the  significance 
of  the  initial  premise  of  self-consciousness.  It  is,  rather,  to  augment 
that  premise  by  another.  It  is  to  insist  that  consciousness  of  reality 
is  as  much  inalienable  and  elemental  as  is  consciousness  of  self. 
Such  consciousness  of  reality  is  an  awareness  of  an  Other,  of  a  back- 
ground and  environment,  recognition  of  which  can  alone  make  it 
logically  possible  to  describe  the  nearer  and  more  immediate  pos- 
sessions of  the  self  in  terms  of  ideas  and  states  of  consciousness. 
This  is  our  way,  then,  of  accepting  so  far  at  least,  the  soundness  of 
those  criticisms  of  the  "end-term"  concept  of  consciousness.  Con- 
sciousness is  not  a  single  end-term,  trying  in  vain  to  reach  out  to 
the  other  end-term  so  as  to  know  it.  Consciousness  originally  spreads 
over  both  ends;  it  is  not  exclusively  self-conscious,  nor  is  it  essen- 
tially isolated  and  remote. 

We  may  turn  immediately  to  that  motive  and  doctrine  in  which 
the  Cartesian  impulse  terminates,  the  thesis  of  Berkeley.  We  have 
to  settle  our  accounts  with  Berkeleyan  "idealism,"  and  to  dwell  for 
a  moment  upon  the  situation  which  generates  the  Berkeleyan  thesis. 
We  are,  in  order  to  understand  and  accept  that  thesis,  asked  to 

[  123  1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

reflect  upon  the  meaning  of  our  natural  belief  that  we  immediately 
know  and  experience  real  objects.  We  see,  touch,  and  hear  directly 
the  things  of  our  world.  Berkeley  merely  asks  that  we  be  in  earnest 
with  this  conviction,  that  we  be  willing  resolutely  to  identify  in  all 
literalness  the  real  objects  of  our  environment,  with  that  which  we 
do  immediately  experience.  That  which  each  one  of  us  has  in  his 
experience,  what  is  it  but  sensations,  perceptions,  feelings,  contents 
of  consciousness,  subject-matter  of  psychology,  throughout  ideal 
and  mental?  To  experience,  to  think  of,  to  know  anything  whatever, 
is  inevitably  to  bring  the  object  known  or  thought  of  into  the 
texture  of  my  experience,  my  ideas,  and  it  thereby  becomes  some- 
thing utterly  mental.  This,  in  principle,  is  the  substance  of  that 
radical  insight  which  Berkeley  in  such  eloquent  and  earnest  lan- 
guage gave  to  the  world,  and  which  by  so  many  inspiring  and  earnest 
teachers  has  been  set  forth  as  at  least  the  beginning  and  the  sure 
foundation  of  a  worthy  idealism.  Once  assent  to  the  cogency  of  this 
insight,  and  at  a  stroke,  it  would  seem,  is  the  entire  position  of 
idealism  achieved.  At  once  it  follows  that  all  experience,  all  knowl- 
edge, all  science  and  philosophy  can  only  disclose  to  us  that  which 
is  really  a  part  of  ourselves,  our  ideas,  our  minds; — if  not  belonging 
to  our  momentary  selves,  it  is  at  least  the  possession  of  that  com- 
plete and  total  self  which  is  continuous  with  our  partial  selves.  Are 
not  all  of  man's  moral  and  spiritual  interests  vindicated  beyond  all 
possible  doubt  and  once  for  all,  merely  by  this  overwhelming  insight 
that  nothing  about  my  world  which  I  can  ever  discover  and  know 
will  be  revealed  as  foreign  to  my  mind,  independent  of  my  conscious 
life,  hostile  or  indifferent  to  my  real  self?  But  must  we  not  say  that 
even  were  we  content  with  the  theoretical  soundness  of  this  Berke- 
leyan  thesis,  which  a  constantly  increasing  number  of  us  are  not, 
we  might  well  hesitate  over  the  manner  in  which  this  insight  is  to 
furnish  us  with  the  guiding  principle  of  idealism.  The  insight  is 
won  far  too  easily,  one  feels;  it  is  obtained  not  through  patient 
search  for  the  specific  values  and  purposes  which  men  have  at  heart, 
and  for  the  conditions  which  shall  attend  their  fruition  and  their 
enjoyment.  It  is  so  utterly  sweeping  in  its  scope  that  it  often  seems 
to  be  only  a  re-naming  of  the  total  universe  of  knowable  objects, 
considered  wholesale  and  en  bloc,  and  a  relabelling  which  tells  us 

[   124  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

nothing  further  about  any  of  the  specific  items  or  relations  which 
characterize  the  particular  things  within  our  world.  However  this 
may  be,  and  we  shall  return  to  some  consideration  of  this  matter 
later,  we  may  now  deal  with  certain  aspects  of  the  Berkeleyan  doc- 
trine which  call  for  comment  and  for  criticism.  The  criticism  may 
be  prefaced  by  the  remark  that  we  believe  Berkeley's  statement  to 
imply  certain  truths  which  are  genuinely  idealistic  and  important, 
but  that  until  we  have  first  seen  some  of  the  errors  to  which  his 
thesis  easily  gives  rise  we  are  not  in  a  position  properly  to  under- 
stand either  idealism,  or  the  deeper  elements  of  truth  within  the 
theses  of  Berkeley. 

There  are  two  respects  in  which  we  shall  at  this  place  examine 
the  assumptions  and  the  implications  of  Berkeley's  argument.  For, 
be  it  noted,  there  is  an  assumption  here,  of  a  very  far-reaching 
nature,  but  one  which  is  certainly  problematic  to  say  the  least.  We 
may  speak  of  it  as  the  axiom  or  assumption  of  sheer  immediacy.  It 
coincides  with  the  belief  that  knowledge  must  mean  simply  reading 
off  the  immediately  given  possessions  and  experiences  of  the  mind. 
To  know  anything  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  to  tell  what  is  literally 
present  to  or  within  the  mind.  There  is,  for  such  an  assumption, 
nothing  whatever  akin  to  venture,  nothing  distant  and  outlying, 
nothing  implicit  and  deep-lying,  about  the  knowledge  situation.  To 
know  an  object  is  to  have  and  to  be  aware  of  actual  sensations  and 
perceptions.  So  that  there  is  complete  coalescence  of  the  object  and 
the  knowledge  of  it.  All  distance  is  overcome,  and  presence,  imme- 
diacy, literalness,  characterize  the  basis  of  the  knowledge  situation. 
One  might  fairly  call  it  the  'swallowing'  or  'digestive'  concept  of 
knowledge.  That  is  to  say,  the  process  and  achievement  of  knowl- 
edge are  conceived  as  essentially  akin  to  the  process  and  achieve- 
ment of  digestion.  Just  as  the  stomach  can  digest  only  such  objects 
as  come  to  reside  within  it,  so  the  mind  can  know  only  such  entities 
as  literally  dwell  within  the  mind,  and  are  thus  through  and  through 
of  mental  stuff  and  texture.  And  this  preconception  as  to  the  nature 
of  our  knowledge  has  its  roots  in  something  deeper.  It  springs  from 
a  blindness,  natural  yet  utterly  confusing,  to  certain  fundamental 
characteristics  of  the  entire  life  of  consciousness.  I  shall  touch  upon 

[  125  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

these  here  briefly  and  only  in  so  far  as  their  neglect  is  one  capital 
source  of  subjectivism. 

In  the  study  of  psychology,  as  traditionally  understood,  there  are 
certain  motives  which  lead  us  to  view  all  contents  of  consciousness, 
all  of  the  immediate  experiences  of  the  self,  as  spread  out  upon  one 
plane  of  being.  There  are,  of  course,  feelings,  sensations,  ideas,  per- 
ceptions, and  the  various  other  states  of  consciousness;  and  in  so 
far  as  these  constitute  the  proper  objects  of  psychological  study, 
they  are  all  comprised  within  the  same  area.  Now  this  inclusion  of 
all  states  of  consciousness  within  a  single  field  has  led  to  the  neglect 
of  a  capital  distinction  within  that  field,  the  insistence  upon  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  solid  achievements  of  recent  psychology.  Let 
us  first  take  a  concrete  instance.  Consider  side  by  side  a  feeling  of 
pain  and  an  intention  to  start  for  Paris  on  the  following  day.  Both 
the  feeling  and  the  intention  are  states  of  consciousness.  They  are 
both  immediately  experienced.  They  are  items  in  the  inner  life  of 
their  owner.  Psychology  tries  to  analyze  and  to  describe  them.  Yet 
there  is  one  contrast  between  them  which  deserves  to  be  stressed. 
We  speak,  of  course,  of  the  feeling  of  pain,  and  of  the  intention  to 
go  to  Paris.  But  while  the  pain  is  an  actual  and  literal  possession  of 
the  person,  the  going  to  Paris  is  not  his  present  possession.  That  is 
in  the  future  and  the  intention  but  refers  to  it,  and  means  it.  There 
is,  in  the  case  of  the  intention  to  go  to  Paris,  a  certain  distance 
between  the  idea  and  that  of  which  it  is  an  idea,  whereas  the  pain 
and  the  feeling  coalesce  together.  The  intention  means  something 
it  does  not  possess ;  the  feeling  means  the  pain  which  it  does  possess, 
and  with  which  it  is  substantially  identical.  There  is  a  tension  and 
a  duality  in  the  one  case  which  is  virtually  lacking  in  the  other  case. 
The  result  is  that  if  you  set  about  to  describe  the  intention  in  the 
same  fashion,  and  with  the  same  preconceptions  as  those  with  which 
you  describe  the  feeling,  you  will  miss  just  that  characteristic  of  the 
intention  whereby  it  differs  from  the  feeling.  You  will  be  likely  to 
notice  only  the  literally  present  possessions,  the  immediate  expe- 
riences which  constitute  the  pain  in  the  one  case,  but  which  are  not 
identical  with  the  object  of  the  intention  in  the  other  case.  General- 
izing from  this  illustration,  what  we  may  say  is  that  there  are 
moments  of  consciousness  which  are  only  experienced  items  and 

r  126 1 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

events  immediately  present,  and  that  there  are  also  "intentional 
acts" — to  use  the  expression  of  Husserl — acts  which  mean  and 
intend  something  not  now  literally  experienced  or  possessed.  Now 
something  of  this  same  fundamental  difference  which  exists  between 
a  feeling  of  pain  and  an  intention  to  go  to  Paris  is  to  be  found  in 
the  distinction  between  sensation  and  thought.  Yet,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  sensations,  or  feelings  either,  are  entirely  lacking  in 
the  "act"  character,  in  the  intention  to  refer  to  something  other  than 
themselves.  It  is  quite  possible,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  true  that  some- 
thing of  the  nature  and  function  of  thought  permeates  every  state 
of  consciousness,  though  in  varying  degree.  We  had  perhaps  best 
keep  the  term  "thought"  to  designate  those  states  or  acts  of  con- 
sciousness which  mean  or  think  objects  wholly  other  than  those 
present  modifications  of  consciousness  which  constitute  the  mind's 
literal  possessions.  Thought  is  the  bearer  and  vehicle  of  those  con- 
scious acts  whereby  that  which  is  not  experienced  and  possessed, 
and  which  constitutes  no  literal  modification  of  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness can  nevertheless  be  intended.  The  thought  or  intended 
object  is  always  other  than  and  different  from  a  content  of  con- 
sciousness. 

I  may  briefly  refer  to  certain  writers  and  doctrines  in  recent 
psychology  which  support  the  validity  of  this  contention.  It  has 
many  implications  and  it  is  worth  being  clear  about.  It  cuts  at  the 
roots  of  Berkeleyan  subjectivism  and  "idealism";  yet  it  does  not, 
as  we  shall  see  later  on,  play  into  the  hands  of  either  nai've  realism 
or  of  neo-realism.  Among  English  psychologists,  Stout  deserves 
especial  mention  for  his  clear  emphasis  upon  this  matter.  We  may 
quote  him  at  some  length.  Let  us  consider,  he  says,  the  case  in  which 
we  think  of  a  sensation  as  such.  "If  it  is  under  any  conditions  pos- 
sible for  the  object  of  thought  to  be  present  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  thinker  when  he  thinks  of  it,  it  ought  to  be  possible  in  this  case. 
If  it  is  not  possible  in  this  case,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  can  be 
possible  at  all.  If  introspective  knowledge  is  not  immediate,  then 
no  knowledge  is  immediate.  Now  it  will  be  found  on  examination 
that  whenever  we  try  to  think  of  an  immediate  experience  of  our 
own,  we  can  do  so  only  by  investing  it  with  attributes  and  relations 
which  are  not  themselves  immediately  experienced  at  the  moment. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

For  example,  I  may  think  of  a  momentary  appearance  in  conscious- 
ness as  an  occurrence  in  my  mental  history,  an  incident  in  my  expe- 
rience. But  neither  my  experience  as  a  whole,  nor  the  position  and 
relations  of  any  part  within  that  whole,  can  be  given  as  the  content 
of  momentary  consciousness.  The  momentary  consciousness  is  only 
one  link  in  the  series  which  constitutes  my  experience.  We  are  able 
to  %ok  before  and  after,  and  sigh  for  what  is  not/  only  because 
thought  can  refer  to  an  object  which  is  not  present  in  consciousness. 
Again  I  may  think  of  the  content  present  in  consciousness,  ab- 
stracted from  the  fact  of  its  presentation.  In  this  case  also  I  am 
obviously  not  thinking  of  the  momentary  experience  as  such  at  the 
moment  at  which  it  is  experienced.  The  presented  content  is  re- 
garded as  something  which  remains  identical  through  the  fleeting 
moments  of  its  appearance."6  And  again,  Stout  asks  us  to  consider 
the  case  in  which  we  refer  to  the  non-existence  of  an  object.  There 
is  here  an  added  argument.  "If  an  object  is  to  be  identified  with  the 
special  modification  of  consciousness  whereby  we  think  it,  we  could 
never  think  of  what  does  not  actually  exist;  for  the  specific  modi- 
fication of  our  consciousness,  whereby  we  think  of  the  non-existent, 
as  such,  must  always  itself  have  existence.  Similarly  with  objects 
which  are  recognised,  not  merely  as  fictitious,  but  as  absurd;  I 
can  think  of  a  round  square,  and  in  so  doing  recognise  that  I  am 
thinking  of  an  absurdity.  But  what  is  it  that  is  absurd?  Not  the 
thought  itself,  as  a  modification  of  my  consciousness:  for  this 
actually  exists,  and  cannot  therefore  possess  the  internal  absurdity 
which  excludes  existence.  What  is  regarded  as  absurd  and  non- 
existent is  the  object.  The  felt  failure  to  combine  round  and  square 
in  one  image  is  itself  part  of  that  content  of  consciousness  through 
which  the  absurdity  of  the  object  is  presented."7 

Now  all  of  this  has  a  very  definite  bearing  upon  the  situation 
which  has  been  so  well  characterized  by  Perry  as  the  "ego-centric" 
situation.  Any  object  or  meaning  whatever,  it  is  implied,  which  is 
thought  of,  intended,  referred  to  by  any  'intentional  act'  of  the  mind 
with  its  characteristic  tension,  thereby  becomes  inevitably  a  part 
of  the  mind  which  knows  it.  It  is  swept  into  the  area  of  the  mind's 

6  G.  F.  Stout:  "Analytic  Psychology,"  vol.  i,  p.  44. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  45. 

[   128   ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

contents  and  actual  possessions  through  the  very  fact  that  it  is 
known.  But  the  distinction  which  we  have  been  describing  becomes 
here  of  the  first  importance.  An  object  which  is  intended,  meant, 
aimed  at,  by  an  intentional  act  is  not  a  modification  of  the  stream 
of  consciousness  as  is  a  feeling  which  the  mind  has.  To  say  that 
both  the  feeling  and  the  intended  object  are  experienced  or  are 
present  to  the  mind,  is  at  once  to  run  the  risk  of  using  the  word 
"experience"  ambiguously,  and  to  blur  the  distinction  here  in  ques- 
tion. Thus,  to  take  a  typical  instance,  Rashdall  remarks  that  "when 
we  are  clear  that  by  'object'  or  ' thing'  we  only  mean  that  which  the 
mind  thinks  or  feels,  and  that  no  independence  or  self -existence  can 
be  attributed  to  the  thing,  the  distinction  between  'mind'  and  'thing' 
becomes  merely  a  distinction  within  the  mind."8  What  the  mind 
"thinks"  is  here  viewed  as  belonging  to  the  same  class  and  as  having 
the  same  characteristics  as  that  which  the  mind  "feels."  Yet  is  it 
not  clear  that  what  the  mind  feels  is  a  modification  of  the  mind,  an 
event  within  the  stream  of  consciousness,  in  a  sense  in  which  that 
which  the  mind  thinks  is  not  a  mode  of  consciousness,  and  conse- 
quently is  not  a  part  of  the  mind?  The  ego-centric  dilemma  applies 
to  feelings  in  a  literal  sense;  it  does  not  apply  to  the  objects  of  our 
'intentional  acts'  in  any  so  literal  and  factual  a  manner.  In  what 
sense  it  does  apply  to  objects  of  thought  we  shall  have  later  to 
consider. 

This  distinction  holds  not  only  between  feeling  and  thought,  but 
between  feeling  and  sensation.  This  latter  distinction  has  much  to 
do  with  the  way  in  which  the  difference  between  self  and  not-self 
grows  up  in  our  experience.  Certainly  feelings  attach  to  the  self 
more  intimately  than  do  sensations.  As  Oesterreich,  who  has  dwelt 
at  length  upon  this  contrast,  has  it,  I  will  readily  say,  when  a  feeling 
of  joy  is  present  to  my  mind,  that  I  feel  myself  to  be  joyful.  But  I 
do  not  say,  when  a  sensation  of  red  is  present  to  my  mind,  that  I 
feel  myself  to  be  red.9 

A  surer  and  more  adequate  psychological  analysis  has  had  to 
emancipate  itself  from  the  psychological  tradition  which  puts  sensa- 
tions, feelings,  thoughts,  and  conations  into  the  one  class  of  ideas, 

8  In  The  Ultimate  Basis  of  Theism,  "Contentio  Veritatis,"  p.  15. 

9  K.  Oesterreich :  "Die  Phanomenologie  des  Ich  in  ihren  Grundproblemen,"  p.  34. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

perceptions,  or  presentations  within  the  mind,  items  within  the 
stream  of  consciousness,  literal  and  almost  spatial  portions  of  imme- 
diate experience.  Within  that  tradition,  which  coincides  with  the 
"end-term"  conception  of  mind,  there  is  the  reduction  of  all  of  the 
mind's  presentations  to  one  common  level,  and  the  all  but  total 
failure  to  discover  that  unique  quality  of  tension,  of  meaning  an 
object,  which  is  the  essential  characteristic  of  thought.  Hume  has 
set  forth  the  outcome  of  this  utterly  democratic  and  levelling  im- 
pulse in  a  classical  passage  as  follows:  "It  has  been  observed  that 
nothing  is  ever  present  to  the  mind  but  its  perceptions;  and  that  all 
the  actions  of  seeing,  hearing,  judging,  loving,  hating,  and  thinking, 
fall  under  this  denomination.  The  mind  can  never  exert  itself  in 
any  action,  which  we  may  not  comprehend  under  the  term  of  per- 
ception; and  consequently  that  term  is  no  less  applicable  to  those 
judgments,  by  which  we  distinguish  moral  good  and  evil,  than  to 
every  other  operation  of  the  mind.  To  approve  of  one  character, 
to  condemn  another,  are  only  so  many  different  perceptions."10 
This  emancipation  has  been  due  to  the  labor  of  a  large  group  of 
psychologists  who,  in  one  form  or  another,  recognize  the  unique  and 
autonomous  nature  of  thought,  of  "intentional  acts,"  of  Gegenstands- 
bewusstsein,  of  attitudes  and  of  meaning.11  It  is  this  autonomy 
of  reason  which  is  lost  sight  of  when  such  terms  as  idea,  perception, 

10  "Treatise  of  Human  Nature,"  Book  3,  of  Morals,  Part  i,  Section  i. 

11  Oesterreich,  ch.  5,  gives  a  summary  of  this  most  significant  chapter  in  recent 
psychology,  citing  the  important  names  among  German  writers.  I  quote  here  a  state- 
ment of  the  contrast  between  sheer  factual  contents  of  consciousness  and  intentional 
acts  from  one  of  the  clearest  of  these  recent  German  writers:  "Wir  haben  nunmehr 
an  dem  Ausdruck  'Empfindung'  eine  zusammenfassende  Bezeichnung  fiir  Erlebnisse 
und  Erlebnisbestandteile  nicht-intentionaler  Art,  also  fiir  samtliche  Inhalte,  sofern 
sie  als  ein  qualitativ  und  intensiv  bestimmbares  Etwas  einfach  im  Bewusstsein  da 
sind,  wahrend  wir  alle  diejenigen  Momente  vermoge  deren  diese  Elemente  eine  Gegen- 
standliche  Deutung  erhalten — sei  es,  das  sie  auf  physische  Dinge  bezogen  oder  selbst 
als  psychische  Gegenstande  gefasst  werden — zu  einer  anderen  Klasse  von  Bewusstsein- 
selementen,  eben  den  'Akten'  oder  'Intentionen'  rechnen,  die  gerade  das  Eigentumliche 
haben,  das  sie  nicht  einfach  im  Bewusstsein  da  sind,  sodern  das  wir  in  ttmen  etwas 
'meinen,'  auf  etwas  'gerichtet'  sind."  Messer:  "Empfmdung  und  Denken,"  p.  42. 

Special  reference  should  also  be  made  to  the  short  essay  by  Pfander:  Zur  Psychol- 
ogic der  Gesinnungen,  in  Husserl's  "Jahrbuch  fiir  Philosophic  und  Phanomenologische 
Forschung,"  vol.  I,  part  i,  1913. 

[  130] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

or  presentation  are  applied  indiscriminately  to  all  of  the  mind's 
immediate  data.  And  Berkeley's  esse  est  per  dpi  is  one  expression 
of  this  inclusion  of  all  data  of  experience  within  the  class  'idea'  and 
then  viewing  all  ideas  merely  as  factual  biographical  items  in  some 
center  of  consciousness.12  If  this  were  a  valid  procedure  every 
science  would  reduce  to  psychology,  and  introspection  would  be  the 
sole  avenue  of  knowledge  about  everything  of  which  the  mind  may 
have  a  perception  or  idea. 

We  have  been  observing  the  error  in  psychology  which  results 
from  viewing  all  contents  of  consciousness  merely  as  presentations, 
ideas,  in  one  dimension  and  upon  one  level.  Let  us  turn  next  to  a 
difficulty  of  another  sort  which  inheres  in  such  a  procedure.  Such 
a  radically  levelling  process  brings  us  face  to  face  with  what  is 
really  the  problem  of  truth  and  error,  and  the  larger  problem  of 
values.  Here  we  are  concerned  with  that  problem  in  so  far  as  it  is 
involved  in  a  critique  of  subjectivism,  whether  the  subjectivism  of 
Berkeley's  esse  est  percipi,  or  of  naturalism.  Let  us  first  recall  the 
way  in  which  each  of  these  doctrines  does  exercise  a  levelling  in- 
fluence upon  a  wide  area  of  facts.  This  is  obvious  in  the  case  of  the 
Esse  est  percipi  thesis.  Here,  whatever  is  real  is  made  an  item,  a 
content  of  consciousness.  And  it  is  upon  the  common  characteristics 
of  all  possessions  of  consciousness,  upon  their  existence  as  "ideas," 
that  attention  is  now  concentrated.  It  is  implied  that  the  most 
important  feature  of  any  object  or  idea  is  just  this  universal  char- 
acteristic which  all  contents  of  consciousness  share  in  common.  It 
is  tempting  to  speculate  on  the  possible  relation  between  this  phi- 
losophy of  Ideas  which,  clearly  formulated  by  Locke,  persists 
throughout  all  subsequent  English  thought,  and  that  Individualism 
which  in  England  more  than  elsewhere  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  was  influenced  by  the  economic  and  industrial 
regime  of  handicraft.  Certainly  the  prevailing  state  of  the  indus- 

12  Cf .  the  following  from  Webb :  "Studies  in  the  History  of  Natural  Theology,"  p. 
152:  "Now  a  tendency  towards  subjectivism  is  always  apt  to  connect  itself  with  a 
tendency  to  lose  sight  of  such  essential  differences  as  that  between  knowledge  and 
opinion  which  is  so  prominent  in  Plato;  or  that  between  'think'  or  'reasoning'  on 
the  one  hand  and  'imagining'  on  the  other.  The  objective  reference  which  distinguishes 
Reason  from  other  mental  processes  is  blurred  when  attention  is  concentrated  on  the 
common  character  of  mental  process  which  it  shares  with  them." 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

trial  arts  did  induce  in  the  English  people  "an  animus  of  democratic 
equity  and  non-interference,  self-help  and  local  autonomy."13  Now 
any  such  Individualism  brings  it  about  that  the  individual  thinks 
of  all  his  possessions,  his  circumstances,  his  ideas  no  less  than  his 
real  property  as  his  own  and  as  all  of  it  belonging  within  a  single 
universe  of  discourse.  This  quality  of  belonging  to  himself  may 
become  then  the  most  important  characteristic  of  everything  which 
the  individual  has.  It  may  become  so  pervasive  and  dominant  as 
to  obliterate  or  at  least  render  innocuous  any  cleavages  within  this 
class  of  what  belongs  to  him.  At  least  the  distinctions  and  dis- 
criminations within  this  class  are  insignificant  in  the  light  of  the 
one  common  characteristic  of  everything  within  the  class,  the  char- 
acteristic, namely,  that  they  all  belong  to  him.  Is  this  mention  of  the 
motives  and  idea  systems  of  individualism,  economic  self-reliance 
and  self-consciousness  irrelevant  in  observing  the  psychological 
doctrine  that  everything  before  the  mind  is  just  a  perception,  an 
idea?  I  think  not.  Bergson  has  made  the  observation,  both  acute 
and  profound,  that  the  "germ  of  English  idealism  (by  which  he 
means  subjectivism)  lies  in  its  inability  to  see  any  difference,  other 
than  that  of  mere  degree  of  intensity,  between  the  reality  of  a  per- 
ceived object  and  the  ideality  of  a  conceived  object.  And  the  theory 
that  we  somehow  erect  our  interior  states  of  consciousness  into 
matter,  that  perception  is  only  a  true  hallucination,  arises  from  the 
same  source."14  It  is  through  breaking  with  this  tradition,  by  calling 
our  attention  to  the  utterly  qualitative  distinction  between  percep- 
tion and  memory  that  Bergson  has  made,  I  believe,  his  most  distinct 
contribution  to  philosophy. 

But  if  the  psychological  tradition  of  English  philosophy  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  tendency  to  sweep  all  objects  and  ideas  into  the 
one  large  class  of  "things  immediately  experienced/'  and  if,  in 
consequence,  certain  important  distinctions  within  that  class  were 
blurred  or  ignored,  precisely  the  same  is  true  of  naturalism.  We  need 
but  recall  the  way  in  which,  for  naturalism,  every  idea,  every  value 

13  Veblen :  "Imperial  Germany  and  the  Industrial  Revolution,"  p.  96. 

14  "Matiere  et  Memoire,"  p.  267.  Taine  also  had  called  perception  an  "halluzination 
vraie."  Cf.  the  penetrating  comments  of  Scheler:  Die  Idole  der  Selbsterkenntniss,  hi 
"Abhandlungen  und  Aufsatze,"  vol.  2,  pp.  78  ff. 

[  132  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

judgment,  every  devotion  and  loyalty  is  viewed  as  the  outcome  and 
the  utterance  of  some  quite  matter-of-fact  process.  These  prior 
factual  conditions  of  all  ideas  and  judgments  are  brain  processes, 
or  the  behavior  of  the  organism  whatever  it  is,  or  some  actual 
desire  and  interest.  And  what  is  here  to  be  observed  is  that  since 
this  pointing  back  to  prior  conditions  and  interests  characterizes 
every  idea,  true  or  false,  and  every  value  judgment,  good  or  evil, 
all  theoretical  ideas  and  all  practical  loyalties  are  at  once  placed 
upon  a  single  level,  brought  within  a  single  comprehensive  class,  in 
respect  to  the  most  important  characteristic  of  ideas  and  loyalties. 
For,  as  we  have  seen,  the  very  essence  of  naturalism  lies  in  with- 
drawing ideas  and  loyalties  from  objective  significant  structures  in 
which  they  may  participate,  and  in  viewing  them  as  the  fruition 
of  natural  life  processes  and  interests.  There  was,  in  the  earlier  idea 
systems,  always  the  possibility  of  discrimination,  of  making  a  dis- 
tinction between  true  ideas  and  false,  good  and  evil  loyalties.  Either 
some  ideas  might  not  reach  their  goal  and  consequently  might  fail 
to  possess  and  to  participate  in  the  objective  structures  embodying 
meaning  and  goodness.  Or  it  might  be  that  there  were  cleavages  and 
conflicts  between  the  objective  structures  themselves,  some  being 
good  and  others  evil.  The  former  was,  on  the  whole,  the  solution 
of  Platonism;  the  latter  was  that  of  Christianity.  But  when  we 
leave  all  of  this  behind,  when  we  cease  to  regard  ideas  as  pointing 
forward  to  significant  structures  in  which  they  may  participate, 
and  when  we  view  them  simply  as  pointing  back  to  the  interest 
which  they  utter  and  of  which  they  are  the  deposit,  then  all  possi- 
bility of  making  any  radical  discrimination  has  left  us.  We  are  in 
the  world  of  facts,  of  causes,  the  world  of  democracy  and  science. 
Is  not  something  of  all  this  present  to  the  mind  of  that  thinker  who 
early  in  modern  philosophy  saw  most  deeply  into  this  consequence 
of  science  and  of  such  large  naturalism?  There  is,  of  course,  very 
much  else  which  shapes  the  structure  of  Spinoza's  philosophy,  but 
his  uncompromising  rejection  of  teleology,  his  insistence  that  all 
value  judgments  and  discriminations  are  left  far  behind  when  one 
attains  to  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  true  cause  of  things,  this 
is  a  profound  reading  and  anticipation  of  many  of  the  forces  defi- 
nitely setting  in  to  fashion  the  modern  world.  For  Spinoza,  indeed, 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

such  relativism  is,  in  the  end,  held  in  check.  Something  absolute 
and  objective,  if  ineffable,  is  accessible  to  the  mind,  when  purged  of 
its  emotions.  For  full-fledged  relativism,  i.e.,  refusal  to  acknowl- 
edge any  distinction  between  the  objective  and  intrinsic  value  of  our 
ideas,  one  turns  to  later  thinkers  who  come  more  directly  and  more 
pervasively  under  the  influence  of  biology  and  of  history.  Renan  is 
one  such.  Renan  fails  to  discover  any  possibility  of  uniting  together 
an  undivided  allegiance  to  a  single  cause,  and  a  comprehensive 
understanding  of  all  causes  and  ideals.  Really  to  understand  any 
ideal  and  any  loyalty  is  to  see  that  it,  like  every  other  ideal,  does 
spring  from  some  actual  interest  and  desire  which  sustains  it.  Any 
ideal  is  thus  completely  understood  and  justified  when  viewed  from 
the  interest  which  has  engendered  it.  One  may,  to  be  sure,  be  blind 
and  not  see  the  dependence  of  loyalties  and  preferences,  other  than 
one's  own,  upon  interests  and  desires  equally  real  with  his  own. 
But  history  and  psychology  correct  such  blindness.  And  with  the 
insight  which  results  from  our  knowledge  there  is,  it  would  seem, 
a  decreasing  confidence  in  the  inherent  and  absolute  worth  of  one's 
own  preferences  and  ideals.  "On  the  whole,"  says  Veblen,  "the 
number  and  variety  of  things  that  are  fundamentally  and  eternally 
true  and  good  increases  as  one  goes  outward  from  the  modern  west- 
European  cultural  centers  into  the  earlier  barbarian  past  or  into 
the  remoter  barbarian  present."15  And  might  it  not  seem  as  if  there 
were  some  deep-seated  antagonism  between  the  life  of  knowledge, 
of  insight,  and  of  whole-hearted  devotion?  Is  the  universality  of 
the  knowledge  interest  incompatible  with  the  discriminating  choice 
and  exclusiveness  of  practical  loyalty  and  of  social  action?  Not 
infrequently  has  voluntarism  and  ir rationalism  supposed  this  to  be 
the  case,  and,  with  James,  has  disclaimed  against  intellectualism, 
because  it  leads  so  inevitably  and  quickly  to  inaction  and  quietism, 
justifying  everything,  and  paralyzing  the  will.  "Formerly,"  says 
Renan — a  noble  example  of  such  relativism — "every  man  had  a 
system;  he  lived  and  died  by  it;  now  we  pass  successively  through 
all  systems,  or  better  still,  understand  them  all  at  once."16  I  may 
cite  again,  too,  from  the  thinker  who  has  done  so  much  to  let  us 

15  "The  Theory  of  Business  Enterprise,"  p.  321,  note. 

16  Quoted  by  Babbitt :  "The  Masters  of  Modern  French  Criticism,"  p.  258. 

[  134  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

see  the  intimate  relation  between  democracy  and  modern  science. 
Professor  Dewey,  speaking  of  Maeterlinck's  philosophy  of  life,  has 
written  as  follows:  "It  has  long  been  said  that  all  men  are  equal  in 
the  presence  of  death;  it  was  perhaps  reserved  for  Emerson  and 
for  Maeterlinck  to  perceive  that  all  men  and  all  experiences  are 
equal  in  the  presence  of  life,  and  because  of  the  presence  in  that  life 
of  nature  that  is  uniform  and  equable  in  all  its  diversities.  When 
one  has  transmuted  the  abstract  ideas  of  science  into  working  senti- 
ments, the  distinctions  of  higher  and  lower,  of  transcendental  and 
empirical,  of  the  great  and  the  little,  the  heroic  and  the  ordinary 
remain,  as  Maeterlinck  has  said,  the  only  extraordinary  and  miracu- 
lous things — that  is,  the  only  infantile  and  foolish  things."17  This 
must  meet  with  sympathetic  response  on  the  part  of  everyone  who 
is  in  any  touch  whatever  with  the  enthusiasm  of  modern  democ- 
racy. And  yet,  too,  even  the  lover  of  democracy  must  ask  whether 
the  distinction  between  the  true  and  the  false,  extraordinary  and 
miraculous  as  it  no  doubt  is,  is  also  "infantile  and  foolish."  Let 
him  be  single-mindedly  devoted  to  the  ideal  of  democracy  itself 
and  he  will  not  regard  the  distinction  between  democracy  and  aris- 
tocracy, between  what  is  true  and  significant  and  what  is  false  and 
outworn  as  a  trivial  and  meaningless  distinction.  Wherein  the  mean- 
ing of  this  contrast  between  the  true  and  the  false  does  really  lie, 
I  do  not  now  ask.  I  urge  merely  that  if  the  distinction  is  to  remain, 
we  cannot  pursue  the  levelling  process  to  its  ultimate  limit.  We 
cannot  remain  content  with  a  subjectivism  which  tends  to  sweep  all 
mental  contents  and  processes  into  the  one  class  of  things  imme- 
diately experienced,  nor  can  we  remain  content  with  a  naturalism 
which  regards  all  ideas  and  all  judgments  equally  as  the  outcome 
of  brain  processes  or  of  life  interests.  If  the  whole  story  about  the 
life  of  mind  is  thought  to  be  told,  in  principle,  when  one  observes 
that  mind  is  the  fruition  and  the  expression  of  the  living  body,  that 
"the  soul  is  the  voice  of  the  body's  interests,"  if  every  idea  is  what 
it  is  wholly  because  of  what  the  body  or  the  brain  is  doing,  then 
indeed  does  the  distinction  between  true  and  false  ideas  simply 
cease  to  exist.  For  in  that  case,  a  "false"  idea  is  just  as  much  the 
function  of  a  brain  process  as  is  a  "true"  idea. 

17  "Maeterlinck's  Philosophy  of  Life,"  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  9,  p.  777. 

[  135  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

We  are  in  a  position  here,  I  believe,  to  see  something  of  the  real 
meaning  of  an  argument  which  is  likely  either  to  escape  us  or  to  irri- 
tate us  unless  it  can  be  set  forth  as  the  discovery  of  a  very  concrete 
situation  which  characterizes  the  life  of  the  mind.  The  argument 
is  the  familiar  one  that  there  are  some  truths  which  may  not  be 
doubted  or  denied,  for  the  doubt  or  the  denial  simply  reaffirms  those 
very  truths.  Professor  Royce  has  urged  that  this  is  the  only  type  of 
truth  upon  which  we  may  safely  build  in  our  philosophical  reflection. 
We  know  that  there  is  absolute  truth,  for  you  cannot  deny  it  without 
implying  that  your  denial  itself  really  conveys  truth,  and  so  on.  But 
this  argument  seems  to  us,  I  think,  empty  and  formal  until  we  see 
that  it,  indeed,  touches  closely  upon  the  relation  between  the  mind's 
ideas  and  prior  natural  process  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  mind's 
relation  to  objective  significant  structures,  on  the  other  hand.  The 
argument  does  in  truth  point  out  that  ideas,  however  related  they 
may  be  to  the  brain,  and  to  social,  economic  interests,  are  also  linked 
indissolubly  to  objective  significant  structures  which  they  know  and 
in  which  they  literally  participate.  The  argument  in  question, 
seemingly  so  barren  and  formal,  is  really  an  insight  into  the  real 
situation  in  which  ideas  exist.  It  yields  as  it  were  a  picture  of  the 
solidarity  between  the  mind  and  those  objective  Forms  and  struc- 
tures which  are  not  the  brain  and  are  not  the  desires  and  interests 
which  enter  into  the  manifold  folkways  of  men.  The  argument  is 
really  an  observation  of  one  highly  significant  aspect  of  the  relation 
between  the  mind  and  the  body.  For,  whoever  says  that  the  mind 
is  the  utterance  of  the  body's  interests  and  behavior  says  then  that 
this  theory  itself  is  not  true,  but  is  only  the  utterance  of  some  par- 
ticular, contingent  brain  process  or  behavior.  But  whoever  says 
this  intends  to  impart  at  least  to  just  this  idea  some  universal  mean- 
ing and  validity.  Such  universality  of  meaning  looks  far  beyond 
and  it  points  in  a  different  direction  from  the  here-and-now,  local 
and  particular  organic  structure  and  behavior  from  which  the  idea 
is  thought  to  emerge.  Consider,  as  a  concrete  illustration  of  this 
whole  situation,  the  "economic  interpretation  of  history."  This  is 
the  theory  that  all  the  ideas  and  ideals  of  any  age  do  but  reflect 
the  prevailing  economic  and  industrial  processes  of  that  period. 
Now,  unquestionably,  this  theory  does  reflect  the  economic  life  and 

[  136  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

interests  of  a  particular  age.  It  could  hardly  have  arisen  in  the 
medieval  world.  It  is  itself  the  spokesman  of  an  era  in  which  men's 
lives  and  habits  of  thought  are,  more  than  ever  before,  determined 
directly  or  indirectly  by  the  routine  of  machine  industry  and  the 
economic  structure  of  capitalism.  But,  if  what  the  theory  asserts 
be  really  true,  then  that  which  is  revealed  by  the  theory  is  just  the 
state  of  the  industrial  arts  in  the  second  third  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  western  Europe.  Yet  the  theory  intends  to  reveal  a  uni- 
versal situation,  a  truth  valid  for  the  entire  life  of  mind  at  all  times 
and  in  all  places.  And  herein  lies  the  contradiction.  We  would  by 
no  means  deny  that  intimate  bonds  of  some  sort  there  are  between 
mind  and  body,  ideas  and  bodily  behavior,  values  and  matter-of- 
fact  interests.  We  shall  later  on  ask  how  that  intimate  relationship 
had  best  be  formulated. 

Consider,  again,  the  most  elementary  features  of  the  situation  in 
which  an  instrumental  theory  of  knowledge  is  set  forth.  Such  a 
theory  stresses  not  only  the  way  in  which  ideas  and  thoughts  emerge 
from  the  life  activities  and  needs  of  organisms  but  also  the  way  in 
which  they  reenter  the  life  processes  as  instruments  in  the  further- 
ance of  those  activities.  The  successful  functioning  of  ideas  in  this 
manner  constitutes  their  truth.  Ideas  point  backward  to  needs  and 
problems,  forward  to  satisfactions  and  to  solutions.  This  scheme  is 
to  supplant  any  reference  whatever  of  ideas  to  "reality,"  in,  let  us 
say,  the  traditional  and  the  Platonic  sense.  When,  however,  we 
inquire  into  the  assumptions  and  the  foundations  of  instrumentalism 
we  shall  discover,  I  believe,  that  it  rests  primarily  upon  accepting 
as  true — in  the  traditional  and  Platonic  sense — certain  premises 
and  results  of  modern  biology.  Instrumentalism  is  true,  in  other 
words,  because  really  and  "absolutely"  the  nervous  system  is,  like 
any  other  organ,  an  engine  of  behavior  and  of  adaptation.  There 
really  exist,  then,  reflex  arc  systems  whose  functioning  enables  the 
organism  to  meet  the  requirements  of  its  life  and  of  its  environment. 
And  ideas,  mind,  and  consciousness  are  just  the  fruition,  or  perhaps 
the  instrument  of  such  functioning.  It  is  only  because  some  ideas, 
those  which  set  forth  this  biological  situation,  are  true  in  the  literal 
and  Platonic  sense  that  all  ideas  can  be  true  in  the  pragmatic  and 

[  137 1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

instrumental  sense.  The  pragmatic  theory  of  truth  is  a  true  theory 
only  if  certain  biological  ideas  are  true  in  a  non-pragmatic  sense. 

What  results  from  our  analysis  thus  far  is  this:  the  dependence 
of  the  mind  upon  the  body  cannot  be  thought  of  as  excluding  the 
participation  of  the  mind  in  universal  significant  structures.  Ideas 
stand  indeed  in  this  double  relationship.  They  point  to  the  natural 
and  vital  forces  which  seem  to  engender  them,  and  also  to  significant 
structures  which  they  know.  Ideas  stand  in  a  "between"  relationship 
with  reference  to  two  orders  or  dimensions  of  being,  matter-of-fact 
processes,  and  Platonic  meanings,  particulars  and  universals.  Ideas, 
we  may  say,  interpret  the  one  order  of  existence  to  the  other.  We 
may  in  the  existing  state  of  our  knowledge,  I  think,  be  even  more 
confident  of  the  mind's  knowledge  of  reality,  in  the  idea's  participa- 
tion in  universal  significant  structures  and  meanings  than  we  are 
of  the  supposed  commonplaces  of  physiological  psychology  and  of 
the  economic  interpretation  of  history.  Whatever  else  we  may  be 
in  ignorance  of,  we  may  know  that  ideas  are  not  completely  isolated 
from  reality,  they  are  not  ego-centric.  They  are,  by  rights,  in  pos- 
session of  reality,  and  they  possess  and  participate  in  a  real  Other, 
in  something  universal  and  utterly  objective.  Neither  subjectivism, 
nor  naturalism,  nor  behaviorism  can  possibly  be  the  last  word,  if 
it  is  intended  that  they  shall  be  true  theories. 

Four  grounds  for  rejecting  the  isolation  of  mind  and  of  ideas 
from  objective  significant  structures  have  been  set  forth  in  this 
chapter.  We  cannot  assent  to  the  Cartesian  Cogito,  ergo  sum  if  it  is 
intended  to  imply  that  the  starting  point  for  all  our  reflection  is 
consciousness  of  self  but  not  at  all  consciousness  of  reality.  One 
cannot  strip  away  from  his  ideas  all  objective  reference,  all  appre- 
hension of  an  Other  and  yet  say,  significantly,  that  he  still  possesses 
at  least  his  own  ideas.  He  does  not  know  them  as  his  own  ideas 
unless  he  is  able  to  contrast  them  with  what  is  real,  with  what  is 
not  merely  his  self  or  a  modification  of  his  self.  We  considered  next 
some  implications  of  the  thesis  of  Berkeley  that  knowledge  consists 
wholly  in  reading  off  the  literally  present  contents  of  mind  which 
are  modifications  of  the  knower's  consciousness.  To  do  this,  is,  we 
saw,  to  ignore  the  radical  psychological  distinction  between  " inten- 
tional acts"  and  presentations.  The  knowledge  situation  is  never  a 

[  138  ] 


THE  MIND'S  PARTICIPATION  IN  REALITY 

single  item,  a  one-dimensional  fact,  merely  a  sensation,  perception, 
or  idea  which  is  but  a  mode  of  the  knower's  mind  as  the  quality  of 
hardness  is  a  mode  of  the  table  upon  which  I  am  writing.  There  is, 
in  the  knowledge  situation,  a  quality  of  distance  and  of  tension, 
of  an  intention  to  mean  something  which  is  not  a  literal  possession, 
in  the  sense  in  which  a  pain  or  a  felt  sensation  is  a  presentation 
immediately  before  or  within  the  mind.  Ideas  are  not  self-contained, 
they  are  not,  in  truth,  isolated,  nor  are  they  merely  "end-terms." 
They  are  linked  to  structures  not  themselves.  They  are  the  vehicles 
of  meanings  with  which  they  are  not  identical.  Thirdly,  we  observed 
a  logical  consequence  of  placing  all  contents  of  the  mind  upon  one 
level,  within  one  class,  and  viewing  them  all  as  ideas  of  the  mind. 
This  is  the  Lockian  tradition.  When  allowed  to  work  itself  out,  it 
obliterates  any  distinctions  of  value  between  the  various  possessions 
of  the  mind.  It  is  a  levelling  motive.  The  distinction  between  true 
and  false,  which  is  a  value  distinction,  disappears  just  in  proportion 
as  the  complete  meaning  of  each  perception  and  idea  comes  to  lie 
in  the  fact  of  its  being  a  presentation,  something  before  the  mind. 
For  false  ideas  as  well  as  true  ideas  are  before  the  mind.  But  natu- 
ralism also,  and  more  profoundly,  is  the  outcome  of  a  similar 
process.  All  ideas  and  loyalties  are  observed  to  depend  upon  and 
to  voice  natural  matter-of-fact  processes.  In  the  light  of  this  common 
equality  of  everything  within  the  life  of  the  mind,  how  may  we 
still  hold  that  there  is  some  real  and  inherent  distinction  between 
the  true  and  the  false,  the  good  and  the  evil?  Nevertheless,  to  oblit- 
erate these  distinctions  is  suicidal.  Some  power  of  revealing  the 
intrinsic  structure  of  reality  must  belong  to  ideas.  Most  clearly  does 
this  come  to  light  when  we  reflect  upon  the  manifest  contradiction 
which  is  implied  in  any  naturalistic  theory  of  the  mind.  These  con- 
tradictions disclose  to  us  that,  after  all,  ideas  are  not  exclusively  the 
projection  and  the  utterance  of  particular  and  contingent  natural 
events.  Ideas  have  the  capacity  of  revealing  the  truth,  because  the 
mind  is  not  isolated  from  objective  significant  structures.  Ideas, 
by  right,  participate  in  reality.  Ideas  also  are,  to  be  sure,  linked  to 
the  vital  needs  and  activities  of  particular  organisms  and  interests. 
Once  more  do  we  come  upon  our  problem.  How  is  it  that  ideas  can, 
at  once,  carry  on  these  two  functions,  point  in  these  two  directions? 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

This  is  but  another  way  of  asking  how  we  may  today  fuse  into  one 
coherent  idea  system,  one  plan  of  life,  both  the  heritage  of  Platonism 
and  Christianity,  and  also  the  deep-lying  requirements  of  the  modern 
age.  One  confusion,  at  least,  we  may  learn  to  avoid.  Idealism  con- 
tains too  much  of  the  tradition  of  Platonism  and  of  Christianity  to 
identify  it  with  a  theory  of  the  self-containedness  and  isolation  of 
ideas.  Subjectivism  and  naturalism,  in  all  of  their  various  forms, 
these  are  the  philosophies  of  ideas  isolated  from  significant  struc- 
tures. Idealism  is  the  philosophy  of  solidarity,  of  possession,  of  the 
mind's  knowledge  of,  and  participation  in,  Reality. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY 
OF  VALUES 

THE  question  as  to  the  existence  of  objective  significant 
structures,  of  real  values,  in  which  the  mind  of  man  may 
participate,  is  our  central  problem.  The  naturalism  and 
subjectivism  of  modern  thought  have  expressed  in  the 
language  of  theory  those  formative  and  practical  forces 
which  have  fashioned  the  characteristic  institutions  and  habits  of 
life  in  modern,  west-European  and  American  culture.  Through  the 
cumulative  impact  of  these  moving  forces  the  direction  of  men's 
interests  and  attitudes  has  profoundly  altered.  The  mind  looks  back- 
ward to  needs,  interests,  and  desires  rather  than  forward  to  "The 
Idea  of  the  Good."  Ideas  are  servants  of  the  will  to  live;  science 
and  knowledge  exist  in  order  to  yield  power,  to  be  useful  instru- 
ments in  the  satisfaction  of  human  wants.  Not  contemplation  and 
possession  of  Ideas,  values,  or  significant  structures  for  their  own 
sake,  but  creative  activity,  control,  the  fruition  of  impulse  and  of 
instinct,  express  our  interests  and  our  world.  The  last  chapter  con- 
sidered some  reasons  for  being  dissatisfied  with  any  philosophical 
theories  which  reject  the  possibility  of  the  mind's  appropriation  and 
knowledge  of  objective  significant  structures.  We  are  henceforth 
committed  to  a  philosophy  which  does  provide  for  such  a  possibility 
and  which  is,  for  that  reason  if  one  chooses,  utterly  "realistic."  We 
are,  in  the  present  chapter,  to  inquire  further  and  more  construc- 
tively into  the  meaning  of  the  assertion  that  significant  structures 
are  objectively  real.  But  we  must  also  attempt  to  interpret  this 
thesis  in  such  a  manner  as  to  provide  a  rightful  place  for  all  of  those 
important  motives  and  attitudes  which  do  characterize  the  modern 
age.  We  cannot  and  we  would  not  go  back  to  Platonism  or  to  the 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

medieval  idea  systems,  discrediting  completely  the  modern  ideals. 
Our  task,  both  theoretical  and  practical,  both  that  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  ideas  and  the  organization  of  life,  is  to  knit  together  into  one 
coherent  and  living  structure  the  attitudes  and  the  philosophies  of 
possession  and  of  activity,  of  participation  in  significant  structures 
and  the  achievement  of  desire.  I  know  of  no  other  term  in  philosophy 
which  may  express  more  adequately  the  resulting  synthesis  than 
the  term  "idealism."  This  chapter  will  seek  to_set_  forth,  then,  the 
fundamental  rjrinciples  of  constructive ^idealism. 

It  is  the  problem  of  values,  once  more,  with  which  we  begin.  There 
are  two  regions  injparticular  which  offer  an  opportunitvjo  observe 
the  fact  and  .significance  of  what  shaJLJiere  be  spoken  of  as  the 
autonomy  of  values.  They  are  Ethics,  and  the  problem  of  knowF" 
edge.  In  each  ofthese  regions  certairTvalues  are  at  stake,  and  we 
shall  observe  throughout  a  common  interest  which  some  familiar 
and  important  concepts  have  in  maintaining  the  autonomy  of  values. 
We  shall  also  observe  that  we  cannot  pause  with  the  autonomy  of 
values,  but  are  confronted  at  once  with  problems  of  reality  and  of 
mind.  What  is  meant,  then,  by  the  "autonomy  of  values"?  An  auton- 
omous value  is  one  whose  validity  or  whose  worthfulness  does  not 
depend  upon  the  mere  existence  of  any  fact  or  situation  whatever. 
No  matter  what  the  real  world  may  contain,  irrespective  of  the 
fortune  of  events  in  space  and  time,  certain  ideals  shall  remain 
significant  and  valid.  Whoever  says  this  is  viewing  such  ideals  as 
if  they  stood  entirely  upon  their  own  feet,  so  far  at  least  as  their 
value  is  concerned.  They  are  autonomous  ideals.  Their  worth  is 
intrinsic,  their  own  possession,  and  is  not  borrowed  from  any  prior 
existing  situation.  Now  there  have  been  weighty  doctrines  and 
theories  of  Ethics  in  which  the  Good  and  the  Right  have  in  no  way 
been  thought  of  as  autonomous.  In  such  theories,  the  content  and 
meaning  of  the  Good  and  the  rightfulness  of  that  which  ought  to 
be  done  is  the  resultant  of  some  actual  fact.  Thus,  the  Good  and 
the  Right  have  been  thought  of  as  dependent  upon  the  matter-of- 
fact  decrees  and  dictates  of  an  actual  sovereign,  of  God,  or  of  the 
civil  power.  One  would  then  be  unable  to  know  what  is  good  or 
right,  what  he  ought  to  do,  without  first  being  informed  as  to  what  is. 
Or,  the  prior  reality  which  determines  the  worth  of  ideals  and  values 

1 142 1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

could  be  viewed  simply  as  nature,  or  as  the  tendencies  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process,  or  as  the  wishes  of  the  majority.  Mr.  G.  E.  Moore, 
who  has  set  forth  with  such  thoroughness  the  various  forms  of 
ethical  heteronomy,  i.e.,  the  refusal  to  regard  the  Good  as  autono- 
mous, has  spoken  of  the  metaphysical  and  the  naturalistic  fallacies. 
The  Stoic  ethics  is  an  instance  of  the  metaphysical  fallacy.  Goodness, 
for  the  Stoic,  lies  in  conformity  and  willing  obedience  to  nature  or 
the  world-reason  which  dwells  within  Nature.  One  may  seriously 
question,  I  believe,  the  complete  absence  of  idealism,  of  the  auton- 
omy of  the  Good,  in  the  Stoic  doctrines.  Something  of  the  Platonic 
teaching  entered  into  the  texture  of  Stoicism.  This  would  become 
quite  clear  if  we  should  turn  to  the  place  which  the  autonomy  of 
values  and  of  the  Good  has  within  political  thought  and  the  influence 
of  Stoicism  there.  The  most  obvious  example  of  the  naturalistic  fal- 
lacy is  to  be  found  in  certain  teachings  of  evolutionary  ethics,  such, 
for  instance,  as  define  goodness  in  terms  of  the  ability  and  the  fact  of 
survival  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  In  both  types  of  fallacy,  if  we 
may  speak  from  the  point  of  view  which  would  regard  them  as  falla- 
cies, some  existing  reality  is  the  determinant  of  the  content  of  the 
Good,  and  of  the  worth  of  all  our  ideals  and  values.  The  belief  that 
these  are  indeed  fallacies,  I  share,  and  for  reasons  which  shall  pres- 
ently be  set  forth.  But  first,  I  would  call  attention  to  another  type  of 
ethical  theory  which  might  seem  to  provide  for  the  autonomy  of  the 
Good,  but  which  will  prove,  upon  analysis,  to  involve  essentially  the 
same  type  of  fallacy.  It  is  fairly  obvious,  namely,  that  there  is  no 
autonomy  in  defining  my  Good  merely  as  obedience  to  the  decrees 
of  God,  whatever  they  may  be,  or  as  conformity  with  the  course  of 
nature,  or  the  laws  of  some  great  Leviathan,  some  absolutistic  state. 
And  this  is  obvious  because  of  the  evident  possibility  of  conflict 
between  all  of  these  existing  facts  and  forces  and  my  own  desires  and 
interests.  I  may  not  desire  to  do  what  nature  or  God  or  the  State  has 
decreed.  One  is,  then,  easily  led  to  suppose  that  if  the  Good  were  only 
defined  as  the  object  of  my  desires,  such  a  Good  would  be  wholly 
autonomous  because  it  is  freed  from  dependence  upon  outer  fact.  It 
appears,  indeed,  almost  axiomatic  that,  in  the  words  of  Hobbes, 
"whatsoever  is  the  object  of  any  man's  Desire,  that  it  is  which  he  for 
his  part  calleth  Good,  and  the  object  of  his  aversion,  Evil."  The  good 

[  143  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

is  the  desired,  and  desire  measures  the  content  and  the  meaning  of 
the  Good.  Or,  if  the  Good  is  defined  as  the  pleasurable,  as  that  which 
yields  satisfaction,  we  have  a  statement  which  may  seem  to  provide 
for  the  autonomy  of  the  Good.  Yet  reflection  may  easily  uncover 
doubts  and  problems.  Certainly  in  one  important  respect  it  makes 
little  difference  whether  the  good  is  defined  as  that  which  conforms 
to  an  external  command,  or  whether  it  is  defined  as  that  which  is  the 
object  of  desire  and  which  yields  feelings  of  satisfaction.  Both  desire 
and  pleasure  and  also  the  arbitrary  decrees  of  an  external  sovereign 
are  utterly  matter  of  fact.  They  are  whatever  they  happen  to  be; 
they  are  existential,  particular  and  contingent.  They  might,  per- 
chance, be  otherwise,  and  this,  their  contingency,  infects  the  content 
and  meaning  of  the  Good,  if  the  Good  is  to  be  thus  defined.  There 
can  be  nothing  inherently  compelling  nor  intrinsically  valid  in  a 
good  which  borrows  its  content  either  from  external  arbitrary  com- 
mands, or  from  psychological  events.  The  same  comment  is  to  be 
made  with  reference  to  the  definition  proffered  by  the  Moral  Sense 
theory,  the  definition  of  the  Good  as  the  approved.  Approval  and 
blame,  like  desire  and  pleasure,  are  also  particular  psychological 
events.  They  are  contingent  and  factual.  A  good,  a  value  which  is 
literally  identical  with  such  matter-of-fact  items  is  not  an  autono- 
mous value. 

So  far,  it  has  been  largely  a  matter  of  definition  and  negative  defi- 
nition at  that.  We  are  to  understand  by  an  objective  good,  an 
autonomous  value,  something  which  is  coincident  neither  with  any 
external  matter-of-fact  situation  or  decree,  nor  with  psychological 
matter  of  fact,  such  as  desire,  pleasure,  or  feelings  of  approval. 
Before  giving  any  reasons  for  holding  that  there  are  genuinely 
autonomous  and  objective  values,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  indi- 
cate briefly  something  of  the  larger  purport  and  background  of  the 
argument.  The  life  of  mind,  the  contents  of  our  individual  minds, 
point  in  two  directions.  Like  our  sense  organs,  our  minds  stand 
between  ourselves  and  a  real  environment.  Consciousness  is  the  fru- 
ition and  the  instrument  of  bodily  activities  and  structures,  and 
consciousness  also  participates  in  reality.  This  objective  and  cogni- 
tive reference  to  and  participation  in  reality  characterizes  not  only 
our  knowledge,  but  our  willing  and  our  loving,  our  feeling  and  our 

[  144  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

valuing  as  well.  Throughout  this  chapter  we  shall  have  in  mind  the 
criticism  of  the  familiar  and  perhaps  prevalent  thesis  that  the  value 
of  anything  depends  entirely  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  needed  and 
desired  by  a  living  organism.  We  shall  not  assent  to  the  statement 
that  the  basic  situation  in  our  value  judgments  is  either  interest  or 
feeling.1  We  shall  urge  that  we  discover  values  much  as  we  discover 
truths,  that  the  values  do  not  depend  upon  the  organization  and 
structure  of  our  matter-of-fact  interests,  but  that  they  are  objective. 
We  wish,  in  a  way,  to  assimilate  our  value  judgments,  the  world  of 
morality  and  of  ethics,  to  our  theoretical  and  our  cognitive  judg- 
ments. So  far  we  shall  be,  if  one  chooses,  perversely  realistic  and 
intellectualistic.  Yet  we  shall  also  seek  to  find  a  place  for  the  (at 
least)  partial  truths  which  the  advocates  of  interest  and  of  desire 
have  so  insistently  urged  upon  us. 

Let  us,  then,  turn  to  some  questions  of  Ethics  and  to  the  central 
ethical  concept  of  the  Good.  And  first  we  may  refer  to  a  thesis  that 
is  by  no  means  novel,  though  it  has  been  set  forth  in  a  striking  way 
by  a  number  of  important  recent  writers.  It  is  the  thesis  that  one 
must  inevitably,  in  one's  reflection,  reach  a  concept  which  is  ultimate 
and  indefinable  in  the  sense  that  it  endows  all  subsidiary  concepts 
with  their  meaning,  but  that  its  own  meaning  is  unborrowed  and 
original.  Such  an  ultimate  idea  is  indefinable  because  we  must  con- 
stantly make  use  of  it  in  defining  derivative  and  analogous  ideas.  To 
"define"  this  last — or  first — idea  would  thus  involve  the  use  of  that 
selfsame  idea.  Now  ever  since  the  teachings  of  Plato,  it  has  been  a 
recurrent  and  profound  doctrine  that  the  good  is  such  an  ultimate 
and  unique  concept.  This  belief  in  the  intrinsic  content  of  the  Good, 
in  its  unborrowed  capacity  to  endow  other  concepts  with  their  ethical 
meaning,  is  by  no  means  the  whole  of  the  Platonic  teaching.  We  shall 
before  long  see  how  this  thesis  is  to  be  supplemented  by  another. 
That  the  meaning  of  the  good  is  different  from  the  meaning  of  the 
desired  or  of  pleasure  is  really  implied  in  the  statement  of  the  hedon- 
ist who  desires  to  equate  these  concepts.  For  such  a  statement  as  this, 
that  man's  happiness  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  desires  are  man's 

1  Thus  Perry :  "Assuming  that  value  is  a  function  of  what  may  broadly  be  termed 
'interest,'"  etc.,  "Monist,"  vol.  27,  p.  352.  See  also  his  article  on  "The  Definition  of 
Value,"  Journal  of  Philosophy,  etc.,  vol.  n,  pp.  141  ff. 

[  145  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

good,  is  certainly  regarded  even  by  the  hedonist  as  a  significant 
proposition.  It  is  not  intended  to  be  tautologous  nor  to  be  a  diction- 
ary definition  of  a  mere  term.  In  the  words  of  Russell,  "when  we  are 
told  that  the  good  is  the  desired,  we  feel  at  once  that  we  are  being 
told  something  of  philosophical  importance,  something  which  has 
ethical  consequences,  something  which  it  is  quite  beyond  the  scope 
of  a  dictionary  to  tell  us.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  we  already  know 
what  we  mean  by  the  good,  and  what  we  mean  by  the  desired;  and 
if  these  two  meanings  always  applied  to  the  same  objects,  that  would 
not  be  a  verbal  definition,  but  an  important  truth."2  Of  recent 
writers  in  Ethics,  it  is  Sidgwick  who  has  impressively  revived  this 
doctrine  of  the  inherent  wealth  of  meaning  which  the  good  possesses, 
and  which  is  not  simply  the  equivalent  of  other  concepts  drawn  from 
our  psychological  feeling  of  pleasure,  desire,  and  interest.  And  this 
thesis  has  been  accepted  and  elaborated  by  Moore,  Rashdall,  and 
Russell.  An  essentially  similar  thesis  forms  the  starting  point  of  a 
monograph  of  the  first  importance  by  Scheler.3 

But,  suppose  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  the  good  has  some  residue  of 
meaning  over  and  above  the  meaning  which  the  desired,  the  ap- 
proved, the  pleasant,  or  any  other  term  may  possess,  and  that,  in 
consequence,  at  least  that  residual  core  of  meaning  is  indefinable 
and  unanalyzable.  Does  this  have  any  bearing  upon  the  theory  that 
the  good  is  something  objective,  something  real  which  the  mind  dis- 
covers and  which  the  intelligence  may  apprehend  ?  In  the  first  place, 
it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  possibility,  at  least,  of  such  an  objec- 
tive good  or  value,  is  thereby  provided  for.  If  the  good  were  merely 
another  name  for  the  desired  or  for  feelings  of  pleasure  and  satis- 
faction, then  obviously  the  situation  would  be  altogether  jone-sided. 
Desire  and  feeling,  psychological  and  bodily  processes  occurring  in 
the  organism  would  alone  generate  value  and  the  good.  These  would 
be  but  names  for  such  vital  or  mental  processes,  and  for  whatever 
might  exist  as  their  projection  or  shadow.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  value 
and  the  good  mean  something  other  than  the  content  of  such  psy- 
chological processes,  the  entire  situation  may  be  more  complex.  It 

2B.  Russell:  "The  Elements  of  Ethics,"  in  "Philosophical  Essays,"  p.  8. 
3  Max  Scheler :  "Der  Formalismus  in  der  Ethik  und  die  materiale  Werthethik,"  in 
Husserl's  "Jahrbuch  fur  Philosophic,"  1913. 

[  146  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

may  be  a  polar  situation  in  which  the  good  is  objective,  lodged  in  the 
environment,  and  at  a  distance  from  the  feelings  which  are  the 
immediate  possessions  of  the  organism.  Is  this,  now,  more  than  a 
possibility?  For  the  beginning  of  an  answer,  we  may  turn  to  the 
empirical  consideration  of  the  manner  in  which  values  enter  into  our 
experience.  There  are,  of  course,  many  familiar  situations  in  which 
an  object  seems  to  be  valuable  solely  because  someone  desires  it, 
strives  for  it,  demands  it.  The  worth  of  the  object  appears  to  be 
entirely  a  function,  an  index,  of  the  intensity  of  the  felt  want.  Thus 
we  say  that  pleasure  is  a  good,  because  men  desire  it,  that  economic 
goods  are  humanly  valuable,  because  there  is  a  demand  and  desire 
for  them.  But  this  situation  certainly  does  not  exhaust  all  the  possi- 
bilities. There  are  values  which  we  apprehend  without  desiring  them 
or  striving  for  them,  and  this  type  of  situation  is  of  the  first  impor- 
tance in  letting  us  see  what  the  objectivity  of  certain  values,  at  least, 
may  mean.  In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  even  in  the 
case  of  objects  whose  value  seems  to  be  a  function  of  their  being 
desired,  there  is  no  exact  correspondence  between  the  worth  we 
impute  to  them,  and  the  intensity  with  which  we  desire  them.  We 
may  even  cease  to  desire  them  and  still  apprehend  them  as  good. 
Sidgwick  has  called  attention  to  this  obvious  possibility.  "A  prudent 
man  is  accustomed  to  suppress,  with  more  or  less  success,  desires 
for  what  he  regards  as  out  of  his  power  to  attain  by  voluntary 
action — as  fine  weather,  perfect  health,  great  wealth  or  fame,  etc., 
but  any  success  he  may  have  in  diminishing  the  actual  intensity  of 
such  desires  has  no  effect  in  leading  him  to  judge  the  objects  desired 
less  'good.'  "*  But,  of  course,  such  objects  are,  as  a  class  and  in  some 
measure,  desired  by  all  men.  Consider,  then,  a  much  more  significant 
instance.  One  large  class  of  values  there  is,  whose  relation  to  con- 
scious desire  and  striving  is  certainly  much  less  intimate.  I  refer  to 
esthetic  values.  And  there  are  here,  at  least,  two  remarks  to  make 
with  reference  to  the  relation  between  the  beautiful  and  human 
desires  and  felt  activities.  The  first  is  that  esthetic  values  may 
announce  themselves  to  our  experience  and  may  be  welcomed  and 
enjoyed  as  if  they  entered  from  without  and  not  as  the  satisfaction 
and  completion  of  a  previous  desire.  "When  a  beautiful  landscape 

4  "The  Methods  of  Ethics,"  p.  no. 

[  147  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

bursts  upon  us  unexpectedly,  the  enjoyment  of  it  is  not  diminished 
by  the  fact  that  we  were  not  craving  for  it  beforehand."5  In  such  a 
case  we  literally  discover  an  objective  value.  But,  one  may  urge  here 
that  men  do  as  a  fact  normally  desire  beauty,  and  that  is  why  the 
beautiful  is  good.  This  desire,  so  it  may  be  said,  exists  as  a  constant 
demand  of  our  nature  even  when  we  are  not  fully  conscious  of  it.  All 
of  which  may  well  be  the  case,  but  there  is  something  here  akin  to  a 
fallacy  which  will  come  to  light  when  we  turn  to  our  second  remark 
about  esthetic  values.  It  is  that  the  central  aspect  of  the  esthetic 
experience  is  precisely  the  absence  or  temporary  suspension  of  desire, 
of  purposive  striving,  of  interest.  This  has  been  frequently  set  forth 
in  its  classical  form  by  Kant  and  by  Schopenhauer,  and  we  need  not 
here  dwell  upon  it.  The  psychological  basis  of  this  doctrine  lies  in  a 
certain  contrast  and  seeming  incompatibility  between  contemplation 
and  desire,  clear  insight  and  emotional  activity.  It  is  this  tension 
which  Spinoza  seizes  upon  so  profoundly  in  his  doctrine  of  the 
manner  in  which  man  is  to  obtain  freedom  from  the  bondage  of  the 
emotions.  It  is  another  aspect  of  this  same  tension  which  Buddhism 
has  used  in  its  doctrine  of  the  way  to  salvation  from  desire  and  the 
sorrows  which  inevitably  accompany  the  vain  striving  of  desire  to 
find  satisfaction.  Now  these  motives  and  teachings  are  familiar  ones. 
They  are  deep-seated  and  persistent  in  the  history  of  ideas.  Their 
evident  purport  is  to  stress  a  region  of  human  experience  which  is 
other  than  that  of  desire  and  interest,  different  from  the  craving  and 
demand  rooted  in  bodily  and  mental  tensions  and  activities.  Yet  this 
region,  although  so  sharply  contrasted  with  all  desire,  is  one  where 
certain  values  are  believed  to  make  their  appearance.  Such  values 
are  thought  to  be  quite  inaccessible  as  long  as  the  striving  and  activ- 
ity of  desire  dominate  the  field  of  consciousness.  But  there  is  a  seem- 
ing difficulty  and  paradox  here.  Kant  asserts  that  the  esthetic  judg- 
ment is  one  which  is  entirely  lacking  in  "interest."  One  may  then  ask 
Kant  whether  there  is  any  "interest"  in  the  beauty  which  the  esthetic 
judgment  pronounces  an  object  to  possess.  Or,  still  clearer,  Schopen- 
hauer certainly  holds  that  in  the  esthetic  contemplation  of  beauty, 
all  desires  are,  for  the  time,  in  abeyance.  One  may  then  ask 
Schopenhauer  whether,  knowing  the  evil  of  all  desire,  and  knowing 

5Rashdall:  "The  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,"  vol.  i,  p.  18. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

the  possibility  of  release  from  desire  which  contemplation  yields, 
one  will  not  desire  to  contemplate  beauty,  and  desire  not  to  have  any 
desires.  Just  so,  one  may  ask  the  Buddhist  how  he  can  desire  to 
uproot  all  desires,  if  all  desires  are  sources  of  sorrow.  Does  not  the 
paradox  reveal  after  all  the  truth  of  the  insight  that  one  cannot 
escape  desire  and  activity,  and  that  the  value  of  that  which  seems  so 
to  be  opposed  to  desire  lies  in  the  fact  that  it,  too,  is  desired, — de- 
sired, it  may  be,  by  a  craving  of  a  different  order?  I  do  not  think  that 
this  is  the  lesson  of  the  paradox.  For,  it  is  agreed  that,  at  the  very 
least,  there  are  two  levels  or  grades  of  "desire"  which  are  here  in 
question.  There  is  the  desire  for  wealth  and  fame,  let  us  say,  and 
then  there  is  the  desire  for  the  possession  of  that  beauty  which  will 
suspend  the  desires  for  wealth  and  fame.  But  does  not  the  difference 
between  these  two  types  of  "desire"  lie  just  in  this,  that  in  the  one 
case  the  valued  object  is  only  or  chiefly  a  projection  of  the  felt  de- 
sire, whereas  in  the  other  case  the  "desire"  is  aroused  by  a  belief  in 
the  intrinsic  and  objective  value  of  the  object?  Only  some  such 
account  of  the  difference  can  justify,  it  seems  to  me,  that  profound 
and  persistent  tendency  to  observe  a  deep  distinction,  a  radical  ten- 
sion, between  the  energies  of  desire  and  activity,  and  the  contem- 
plative insight  and  apprehension  which  yield  the  possession  of  some 
objective  and  intrinsic  good. 

Not  only  does  the  contemplation  of  the  beautiful  yield  an  appre- 
hension and  possession  of  a  good  which  is  not  founded  upon  desire, 
but  the  same  thing  is  to  be  pointed  out  in  another  region.  I  refer  to 
the  contrast  between  desire  or  striving,  and  love,  and  to  the 
undoubted  existence  of  an  attitude  of  loving  in  which  striving  and 
desire  are  not  present.  There  is  a  disinterested  and  contemplative 
aspect  of  loving  which  places  it  within  another  psychological  cate- 
gory than  that  of  desire.  Devotion,  loyalty,  worship  are,  on  the  whole, 
non-pragmatic  attitudes.  They  are  experiences  and  attitudes  in 
which  the  object  of  devotion  is  not  viewed  as  any  instrument  to  be 
used  in  the  furtherance  of  life  activities,  or  in  the  adjustment  of  the 
organism  to  its  environment.  In  love,  it  is  the  environment,  the  per- 
son loved,  the  ideal  object  in  which  the  attitude  of  affection  and 
loyalty  terminates,  that  constitutes,  as  it  were,  the  center  of  gravity 
of  the  act  of  loving.  The  environment  does  not  exist  in  order  that 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

that  desire  may  be  satisfied  and  interest  fulfilled.  Once  more,  the 
situation  is  a  polar  one;  there  is  a  realm  of  objective  values,  a  real 
order  in  which  dwell  the  objects,  significant  structures,  which  are 
worthy  of  affection  and  of  loyalty,  and  it  is  toward  this  objective 
focus  that  the  energies  of  the  lover's  mind  and  interests  are  concen- 
trated.6 

Thus  are  we  justified  in  stressing  the  objective  status  of  values 
whose  prior  existence  and  whose  nature  make  them  worthy  objects 
of  recognition,  knowledge,  and  love.  Here  is,  indeed,  a  region  and  an 
experience  not  easily  to  be  subsumed  under  the  pragmatic  rubric 
of  adaptation,  of  behavior,  of  instrumental  efficiency,  and  of  the 
outgoing  striving  of  an  organism  to  maintain  its  existence  against 
an  environment  which  it  seeks  to  master  and  to  control.  We  shall 
not  at  this  place  develop  the  theme  any  further.  The  full  measure 
of  its  significance  comes  to  light  only  when  we  undertake  to  scruti- 
nize and  to  appraise  the  true  nature  of  our  human  social  interests, 
the  life  of  religion,  and  the  central  doctrines  of  idealism. 

But  the  thesis  that  values  are  objective,  that  they  are  fit  objects 
of  discovery,  of  contemplation,  and  of  worship  and  love  comes  into 
sharper  relief  if  we  compare  it  with  another  doctrine  with  which 
it  is  not  seldom  confused.  That  such  terms  as  pleasure  and  satis- 
faction are  abstract,  and  that  there  exist  in  reality  various  concrete 
pleasures,  rather  than  a  single  blanket  pleasure,  is  something  of  a 
commonplace  of  ethical  criticism.  It  is  possible  to  arrange  pleasures 
in  various  series.  One  such  series  is  deserving  of  notice  here.  Con- 
sider, then,  a  series  of  types  of  pleasure  where  one  starts,  let  us  say, 

6  Cf .  the  following  quotation  from  Laberthonniere :  "Essais  de  Philosophie  Reli- 
gieuse,"  p.  68.  "Mais  1'amour,  on  ne  le  remarque  pas  assez,  n'a  rien  de  commun  avec 
le  desir.  Par  le  desir  on  cherche  a  transformer  ce  qu'on  desire  en  soi-meme.  Par  1'amour 
on  se  transforme  en  ce  qu'on  aime.  L'amour  n'est  pas  une  prise  de  possession,  c'est  le 
don  de  soi.  .  .  .  Ce  qu'on  desire  on  le  traite  comme  une  chose,  on  le  considere  comme 
un  moyen;  se  qu'on  aime  on  le  traite  comme  un  etre,  on  le  considere  comme  une  fin." 
The  essays  of  Pfander:  Zur  Psychologie  der  Gesinmmgen,  and  of  Scheler:  Der  For- 
malismus  in  der  Ethik  und  die  materiale  Wertethik,  in  Husserl's  "Jahrbuch  fur  Phi- 
losophie" are  particularly  worthy  of  mention.  Cf.  the  following  from  Pfander:  "Aber 
dieses  Streben,  dieses  Moment  des  unbefriedigten  Drangens  kann  allmahlich  versch- 
winden,  und  trotzdem  kann  dann  die  aktuelle  Gesinnung  der  Liebe  unvermindet 
vorhanden  bleiben :  Es  gibt  eben  strebungslose,  in  ihrem  Gegenstand  befriedigt  ruhende 
Liebe,  Zuneigung  und  Freundlichkeit."  p.  351. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

with  a  very  brief,  momentary  thrill  of  pleasure  feeling.  The  animal 
order,  no  doubt,  far  lower  than  man,  exhibits  such  fleeting  moments 
of  enjoyment.  They  may  leave  behind  them  little  or  nothing  in  the 
way  of  altered  disposition  or  memory.  Now,  from  this  as  a  lower 
limit,  one  may  ascend  through  types  of  pleasure  which  exhibit  an 
increasing  stability,  permanence,  and  coherent  solidity.  "Happiness," 
no  doubt,  belongs  further  along  in  such  a  series  than  does  "pleasure." 
Happiness  certainly  connotes  greater  stability  and  permanence  than 
pleasure  does;  it  signifies  an  enduring  disposition  or  attitude  rather 
than  a  momentary,  felt  experience.  And  there  are,  of  course,  varying 
degrees  of  permanence  and  of  solidity  in  concrete  instances  of 
happiness  and  of  satisfaction.  Some  are  more  enduring  than  others, 
some  bring  into  play  deeper  or  more  ideal  levels  and  interests  of  the 
self  than  do  others.  All  of  this  is,  of  course,  perfectly  familiar  and 
commonplace.  But  here  is  surely  a  problem.  What,  we  may  inquire, 
is  the  upper  limit  of  this  series?  Is  the  series  simply  one  in  which 
nothing  is  involved  save  differences  in  the  duration,  in  the  depth, 
in  the  solidity  of  what  is  restricted  wholly  to  the  self?  Is  the  series 
one  in  which  the  dominant  theme  is  the  overcoming  of  the  isolation 
and  particularity  of  impulse,  through  the  emergence  of  self- 
consciousness,  and  the  idea  of  a  self  which  is  different  from  any 
mere  sum  of  its  feelings  and  its  experiences?  It  is  thus,  for  instance, 
that  Green  has  so  impressively  set  forth  the  relation  and  the  con- 
trast between  the  pleasure  which  constitutes  the  satisfaction  of  an 
impulse,  and  the  well-being  which  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  entire 
self.  "The  objects  of  a  man's  various  desires,"  says  Green,  "form  a 
system,  connected  by  memory  and  anticipation,  in  which  each  is 
qualified  by  the  rest;  and  just  as  the  object  of  what  we  reckon  a 
single  desire  derives  its  unity  from  the  unity  of  the  self-presenting 
consciousness  in  and  for  which  alone  it  exists,  so  the  system  of  a 
man's  desires  has  its  bond  of  union  in  the  single  subject,  which 
always  carries  with  it  the  consciousness  of  objects  that  have  been 
and  may  be  desired  into  the  consciousness  of  the  object  which  at 
present  is  being  desired.  ...  It  is  thus  equally  important  to  bear 
in  mind  that  there  is  a  real  unity  in  all  a  man's  desires,  a  common 
ground  of  them  all,  and  that  this  real  unity  or  common  ground  is 
simply  the  man's  self,  as  conscious  of  itself  and  consciously  seeking 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

in  the  satisfaction  of  desires  the  satisfaction  of  self."7  In  this  inter- 
pretation of  the  series  in  question,  the  upper  limit  is  the  complete 
realization  of  those  desires  and  capacities  which  belong  to  the  real 
and  the  eternal  self,  to  that  spiritual  principle  which  is  the  source 
of  all  order,  coherence,  and  stability.  But,  let  it  be  noted,  the  ulti- 
mate good  is  here  defined  entirely  in  terms  of  the  self  and  its  activi- 
ties. Throughout,  "the  common  characteristic  of  the  good  is  that 
it  satisfies  some  desire."8  The  position  of  any  particular  pleasure 
or  satisfaction  in  the  series  depends  solely  upon  the  area  and  the 
coherence  of  the  activities  of  the  self  which  finds  satisfaction.  There 
is  another  interpretation  of  such  a  series  which  offers,  at  least,  a 
possible  hypothesis,  and  which  is  worth  considering.  It  is  the 
hypothesis  that  as  one  approaches  the  upper  limit  of  this  series  of 
satisfactions,  the  self  is  more  and  more  participating  in  an  objective 
order,  an  environing  reality  which  constitutes  the  good.  To  expe- 
rience satisfactions  which  belong  to  the  upper  reaches  of  our  series 
is  to  explore  and  to  discover  wider  ranges  of  values  which  reside 
within  that  real,  objective  order.  The  series  runs  not  merely  from 
momentary  thrill  of  pleasure  to  enduring  satisfaction,  but  from 
happiness  and  satisfaction  as  immediate  experiences  of  the  self  to 
the  knowledge  and  possession  of  the  good,  to  participation  in  the 
life  and  the  interests  of  a  real  community.  Here  also  does  the  self 
live  in  an  environment;  it  is  linked  to  reality  and  it  participates  in 
a  world  of  reality.  And  here,  too,  is  seen  once  more  the  necessity  of 
recognizing  the  possibility  of  apprehending  and  possessing  values, 
as  an  experience  which  is  not  simply  an  outgrowth  of  the  realization 
of  conation  and  desire.9 

Did  we  accept  this  hypothesis,  we  could  then  interpret  the  life  of 
goodness  and  morality  as  the  recognition  of  the  objective  values 
which  the  real  world  contains.  The  good  man  is  he  who  lives  within 

7  "Prolegomena  to  Ethics,"  pp.  150-151. 

8  Ibid.,  p.  201. 

9  Cf .  the  following  sentence  from  Scheler,  p.  498 :  "Gerade  im  ruhigen  Fiihlen  und 
dem  vollen   geflihlsmassigen  Besitzen  eines  positiv  wertvollen   Gutes   ist  sogar   der 
reinste  Fall  der  'Befriedigung'  gegeben,  d.  h.  da,  wo  alles  'Streben'  schweight;  auch 
muss  nicht  notwendig  ein  Streben  vorhergegangen  sein  damit  Befriedigung  eintrete." 
Mention  may  also  be  made  of  Rashdall's,  "Is  Conscience  an  Emotion,"  especially  the 
final  chapter  entitled  Value  or  Satisfaction. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

a  larger  world;  he  participates  in  wider  ranges  of  reality,  he  has 
discovered  and  appropriated  values  which  simply  do  not  enter  into 
the  life  and  experience  of  those  who  are  less  "good."  This  is  the 
Socratic  thesis  that  virtue  is  insight,  knowledge.  No  doubt  there  are 
varying  degrees  of  the  warmth  and  intimacy  with  which  real  values 
may  be  apprehended,  and  it  is  only  when  the  mind's  participation 
in  the  Good  is  intimate  and  vivid  that  the  will  is  set  in  motion. 
Nevertheless  the  response  of  the  will  is  to  significant  structures 
and  to  an  objective  good  in  which  the  mind  does  participate.  Speak- 
ing of  lago  and  the  idea  that  he  is  a  man  "of  supreme  intellect  who 
is  at  the  same  time  supremely  wicked,"  Professor  Bradley  bids  us 
"perceive  how  miserably  close  is  his  intellectual  horizon;  that  such 
a  thing  as  a  thought  beyond  the  reaches  of  his  soul  has  never  come 
near  him;  that  he  is  prosaic  through  and  through,  deaf  and  blind 
to  all  but  a  tiny  fragment  of  the  meaning  of  things."10 

But  we  have  still,  I  believe,  to  set  forth  the  most  convincing  and 
the  most  significant  reason  for  viewing  the  objects  of  our  value 
judgments  as,  in  a  real  sense,  objective,  and  not  merely  as  reflec- 
tions and  projections  of  our  own  desires  and  interests.  And  this 
consideration  will  also  bring  to  light  the  actual  function  which  feel- 
ing and  conation  do  play  in  our  recognition  of  values  and  in  our 
value  judgments.  For  there  can,  of  course,  be  no  doubt  that  feelings 
of  satisfaction  or  of  pleasure  or  of  outgoing  conations  are  always 
in  evidence  whenever  we  pronounce  an  object  to  be  good.  We  have 
been  urging  that  such  an  apprehension  of  worth  and,  in  consequence, 
the  good  life  itself,  is  cognitive  in  its  innermost  nature.  We  partici- 
pate in  objective,  significant  structures,  when  we  discover  and 
appropriate  something  which  is  really  of  value.  Such  an  experience 
of  recognizing  and  of  participating  in  something  objective  may  be 
akin  to  desire  and  striving  or  contemplation  and  love.  But  in  any 
entrance  of  values  into  our  experience,  feeling  of  some  sort  is 
aroused.  There  is,  then,  this  difference  between  our  theoretical  judg- 
ments and  our  value  judgments.  Both  are,  or  may  be,  cognitive. 
But  whereas  in  a  theoretical  judgment  feelings  need  not  be  impli- 
cated, in  our  value  judgments  something  in  the  way  of  feeling  always 
is  involved.  It  is  the  detailed  analysis  of  the  feelings  and  emotions 

10  A.  C.  Bradley :  "Shakespearean  Tragedy,"  p.  236. 

t  iS3  1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

which  are  invariably  present  whenever  we  approve  and  disapprove, 
which  constitutes  the  distinctive  achievement  of  recent  social 
psychology  and  of  anthropology,  of  the  work  of  McDougall  and 
of  Westermarck.  It  is  pointed  out  that  not  only  of  our  approvals 
and  disapprovals  but  of  all  our  activity  as  well,  is  some  feeling,  some 
emotion,  the  stimulus  and  the  source.  For  feeling  and  emotion,  when 
used  in  a  large  sense,  are  thought  of  as  concomitants  and  functions 
of  instinct.  Instinctive  behavior  and  a  distinct  complex  of  feelings 
and  emotions  are  invariably  linked  together.  These  lie  at  the  basis 
not  only  of  our  value  judgments  but  of  our  entire  practical  be- 
havior. "Take  away  these  instinctive  dispositions  with  their  power- 
ful impulses,  and  the  organism  would  become  incapable  of  activity 
of  any  kind;  it  would  lie  inert  and  motionless  like  a  wonderful 
clock  work  whose  main  spring  had  been  removed  or  a  steam-engine 
whose  fires  had  been  drawn.  These  impulses  are  the  mental  forces 
that  maintain  and  shape  all  the  life  of  individuals  and  societies, 
and  in  them  we  are  confronted  with  the  central  mystery  of  life  and 
mind  and  will."11 

We  yield  a  hearty  assent  to  the  thesis  that  emotion  and  feeling, 
desire  and  interest,  play  an  indispensable  role  in  our  value  judg- 
ments. We  shall,  however,  bring  to  bear  upon  this  thesis  the  dis- 
tinction which  has  already  met  our  attention  and  which  will  here 
prove  to  be  of  decisive  importance.  It  is  the  distinction  between 
stimulus  and  object.  And  what  we  shall  proceed  to  maintain  is  that 
feeling  is  both  the  necessary  stimulus  and  the  vehicle  of  our  value 
judgments,  but  neither  their  object  nor,  in  a  certain  sense,  their 
source.  In  order  to  set  forth  the  larger  implications  and  background 
of  this  thesis,  we  may  correlate  it  with  another  thesis,  which  is  to  be 
dealt  with  in  the  following  chapter.  We  shall  there  maintain  the  view 
that,  with  reference  to  the  relation  between  knowledge  and  behavior, 
the  mind  and  the  brain,  our  knowledge  is  not  an  instrument  of  our 
behavior,  nor  is  it  generated  by  behavior,  but  that  there  is  never- 
theless a  functional  correspondence  between  knowledge  and  be- 
havior. Or,  if  we  are  to  speak  of  mind  and  brain,  we  shall  point 
out  that  here,  too,  processes  occurring  within  the  brain  (a  matter 
of  bodily  behavior)  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  contents  of 

11  McDougall :  "Social  Psychology,"  p.  44. 

[   154  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

our  consciousness  (a  matter  of  knowledge).  But  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  brain  processes  generate  consciousness,  or  that  bodily 
behavior  is  literally  identical  with  what  we  have  traditionally 
spoken  of  as  consciousness.  The  mutual  correlation  between  brain 
processes  and  states  of  consciousness,  or  between  behavior  and 
knowledge,  is  equally  compatible  with  another  hypothesis,  the 
hypothesis,  namely,  that  the  brain  is  an  organ  of  selection  and  not 
of  creation  (of  consciousness),  that  there  is  no  access  to  my  mind 
save  though  my  brain,  and  that  what  my  brain  is  now  doing  and 
how  my  body  is  now  behaving  determine  what  is  going  on  in  my 
mind  and  what  I  am  now  attentive  to  and  what  I  know.  But  these 
latter  are  determined  only  in  the  sense  that  they  are  selected,  not 
in  the  sense  that  they  are  thus  generated.  Brain  process  and  bodily 
behavior  are  the  necessary  vehicle  through  which  the  stimulus 
must  pass,  but  they  are  not  thereby  the  proper  objects  of  the  mind's 
knowledge  or  attention.  Likewise,  here,  we  shall  agree  that  the  only 
avenue  through  which  the  good  may  enter  into  our  experience  is  the 
avenue  of  feeling  and  desire,  but  here  also  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  feeling  and  desire  create  the  idea  of  the  good,  nor  does  it  follow 
that  our  value  judgments  have  no  true  object  other  than  the  feeling 
which  generates  them  or  that  which  is  the  shadowy  projection  of 
our  own  desires. 

A  passage  from  Hume  will  furnish  us  here  with  our  point  of 
departure.  "But  can  there  be  any  difficulty  in  proving,  that  vice  and 
virtue  are  not  matters  of  fact  (i.e.,  objective)  whose  existence  we 
can  infer  by  reason?  Take  any  action  allow'd  to  be  vicious:  Willful 
murder,  for  instance.  Examine  it  in  all  lights,  and  see  if  you  can 
find  that  matter  of  fact,  or  real  existence,  which  you  call  vice. 
In  whichever  way  you  take  it,  you  find  only  certain  passions, 
motives,  volitions  and  thoughts.  There  is  no  other  matter  of  fact  in 
the  case.  The  vice  entirely  escapes  you,  as  long  as  you  consider  the 
object.  You  never  can  find  it,  till  you  turn  your  reflection  into  your 
own  breast,  and  find  a  sentiment  of  disapprobation,  which  arises 
in  you,  towards  this  action.  Here  is  a  matter  of  fact;  but  'tis  the 
object  of  feeling,  not  of  reason.  It  lies  in  yourself,  not  in  the  object. 
So  that  when  you  pronounce  any  action  or  character  to  be  vicious, 
you  mean  nothing,  but  that  from  the  constitution  of  your  nature, 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

you  have  a  feeling  or  sentiment  of  blame  from  the  contemplation 
of  it.  Vice  and  virtue,  therefore,  may  be  compar'd  to  sounds, 
colours,  heat  and  cold,  which,  according  to  modern  philosophy,  are 
not  qualities  in  objects,  but  perceptions  in  the  mind."12 

Is  it  not  clear  that  this  passage  exhibits  a  failure  to  discriminate 
between  the  object  of  our  moral  disapproval,  and  the  stimulus,  i.e., 
the  moving  force,  the  emotion,  which  does  excite  the  moral  judg- 
ment? And  is  it  not  also  clear  that  this  is  quite  on  a  par  with  the 
similar  confusion  in  our  theoretical  judgments,  in  the  region  of 
sense  perception  and  our  knowledge  of  reality,  which  leads  there 
to  immediacy  and  to  subjective  idealism?  Let  us  briefly  review  the 
nature  of  that  confusion,  and  observe  the  analogy  between  the  two 
situations.  I  perceive  yonder  tree.  Obviously  the  reason  which  leads 
me  to  make  this  judgment,  and  the  inciting  cause  of  my  knowledge 
is  the  fact  that  I  actually  have  in  my  conscious  experience  a  complex 
of  sensations  and  feelings  of  attention,  etc.,  which  in  their  totality 
the  psychologist  calls  a  perception.  Or,  if  we  chose  to  describe  the 
inciting  cause,  the  stimulus,  of  my  knowledge  that  yonder  is  a  tree, 
in  physical  and  physiological  terms,  we  point,  of  course,  to  the 
excitement  of  the  retina  by  light  waves  and  the  propagation  of  that 
excitement  along  sensory  nerves  to  the  brain.  But  neither  the  con- 
scious perception,  nor  the  brain  process,  is  the  object  of  our  knowl- 
edge, the  thing  perceived.  They  are,  rather,  the  stimulus,  the 
vehicle,  of  our  knowledge.  Yet  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the 
persistent  confusion  between  object  and  stimulus  is,  in  the  last 
analysis,  the  chief  source  of  subjectivism.  If  it  be  asked  by  what 
right  we  insist  upon  distinguishing  them,  the  answer,  I  conceive, 
might  be  somewhat  as  follows.  There  are  certainly  some  instances 
of  knowledge  in  which  object  and  stimulus  cannot  possibly  coincide. 
They  cannot  coincide  whenever  something  inert,  abstract,  remote, 
or  non-existent  is  the  object  of  our  knowledge.  Whoever  makes  an 
assertion  about  a  past  event  is  speaking  of  something  which  simply 
cannot  be  the  inciting  cause,  the  stimulus  of  his  assertion  and  his 
knowledge.  A  past  event  no  longer  exists,  it  has  lost  its  efficacious- 
ness and  its  capacity  to  act  as  a  stimulus.  A  "pure"  instrumentalist 
or  behaviorist  will  care  nothing  for  the  past,  because  the  past  as 

12  "Treatise,"  Book  3,  Part  i,  Section  i. 

[  156  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

such  can  never  be  a  stimulus  to  which  the  behavior  of  the  organism 
must  respond.  It  accords  wholly  with  this  when  Dewey  remarks 
that  "to  isolate  the  past,  dwelling  upon  it  for  its  own  sake  and 
giving  it  the  eulogistic  name  of  knowledge,  is  to  substitute  the 
reminiscence  of  old  age  for  effective  intelligence."13  But  if  the  past 
is  in  no  way  "practically"  efficacious,  unable  to  act  as  a  stimulus, 
no  more  so,  it  would  appear,  can  the  future  be.  At  the  present 
moment  the  future  seems  to  be  as  non-existent  as  the  past  and  of 
course  whatever  literally  incites  and  calls  into  existence  knowledge 
must  itself  exist.  And  the  same  must  hold  good  of  abstract  and  ideal 
objects,  of  assumptions,  of  non-physical  relationships,  of  universals, 
unless  indeed  we  are  willing  to  ally  ourselves  unreservedly  with  the 
extreme  tradition  of  nominalism  and  affirm  that  all  such  supposed 
objects  of  knowledge  are  mere  names,  mere  "sounds  of  the  voice." 
And  yet,  that  all  of  these  are  mere  names  is  itself  something  of  an 
abstract,  ideal  and  universal  proposition  which  can  hardly  be  as 
efficacious  a  stimulus  to  bodily  behavior  as,  say,  a  blow  upon  the 
head.  And  certainly  the  non-existent,  the  class  which  contains  no 
members,  is  an  important  object  of  our  knowledge.  Negative  propo- 
sitions, and  indeed  universal  propositions,  affirming  as  they  do  the 
non-existence  of  some  portion  of  the  universe  of  discourse,  enter 
into  every  region  of  our  knowledge.  They  are  inescapable.  To  doubt 
and  question  them  and  to  deny  them  is  not  possible  save  as  we 
affirm  and  imply  at  least  some  universal  and  ideal  relations  which 
cannot  possibly  coalesce  with  items  which  are  fit  to  serve  as  literal 
stimuli.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable,  then,  that  there  are  at  least 
some  objects  of  knowledge  which  are  not  stimuli  inciting  in  our 
minds  the  existence  of  that  knowledge.  This  conclusion  would,  I 
think,  lead  one  to  wonder  whether  in  the  case  of  present  physical 
objects  which  do  act  as  a  stimulus  to  our  sense  organs  and  our  reflex 
arc  structures,  that  aspect  of  the  thing  which  is  the  stimulus  is  also 
the  object  of  our  knowledge.  It  is  demonstrable,  I  believe,  that  the 
object  of  knowledge  is  always  something  more  complex  and  more 
ideal  than  any  mere  here-and-now  item  which  is  the  stimulus  either 
of  our  behavior  or  of  our  knowledge.  Plato's  "Theaetetus," 

13  In  "Creative  Intelligence,"  p.  14. 

[  is?  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Spinoza's  "Ethics"  and  Hegel's  "Phenomenology"  furnish  a  sufficient 
demonstration  of  this  thesis. 

Let  us  come  back  now  to  our  value  judgments,  our  approvals  and 
disapprovals,  our  desires  and  our  strivings.  There  is  that  within 
our  experience  which  is  ultimately  rooted  in  our  instincts,  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  feeling  and  emotion,  which  is  indeed  invariably 
present  in  all  such  practical  attitudes.  The  Moral  Sense  theories  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  best  represented  by  Hume,  were  utterly 
right  in  insisting  as  against  the  rigid  intellectuals,  upon  this  out- 
standing circumstance.  The  social  and  the  anthropological,  above 
all,  the  evolutionary  aspect  of  the  moral  sense,  of  the  emotional 
feelings  of  blame  and  praise,  liking  and  disliking,  desire  and  aver- 
sion, they  could,  of  course,  not  adequately  have  seen.  But  having 
discovered  this  region  of  feeling,  they  err  in  supposing  that  it  is  the 
real  object  of  our  moral  praise  and  blame,  in  inferring  that  "when 
you  pronounce  any  action  or  character  to  be  vicious,  you  mean 
nothing,  but  that  from  the  constitution  of  your  nature  you  have  a 
feeling  or  sentiment  of  blame  from  the  contemplation  of  it."  They 
commit  essentially  the  same  fallacy  as  those  who  infer  that  the 
pleasure,  the  felt  satisfaction,  through  which  the  object  of  desire, 
the  good,  announces  itself  to  our  experience,  is  itself  the  object  of 
our  interest  and  our  desire.  The  Moral  Sense  writers  had  succeeded, 
for  the  most  part,  in  breaking  with  the  fallacy  of  psychological 
hedonism.  They  confused,  however,  the  feeling  of  approval  with  the 
object  of  approval.  They  had  not  been  schooled  in  the  Platonic— 
and  idealistic — tradition  which  bids  us  see  in  the  felt  immediacies 
of  experience,  the  vehicles  and  the  illustrations  of  the  true  objects 
of  our  knowledge  and  our  love,  the  realm  of  Ideas  culminating  in 
the  Idea  of  the  Good. 

Our  conclusion,  then,  is  that  the  feelings  of  'moral  sense'  are  the 
representatives  within  experience  of  those  moral  qualities  which 
constitute  the  objects  of  our  ethical  judgments.  Such  feelings  are 
also  the  inciting  stimuli  of  these  judgments.  These  feelings  have 
very  much  the  same  relations  to  the  objective  region  of  the  good, 
that  our  perceptions,  as  conscious  contents,  have  to  the  objects 
which  they  intend  and  mean.  Such  feelings,  when  they  are  the 
stimuli  of  our  judgments,  possess  just  that  act  character,  that 

[  158  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

quality  of  intending  something  other  than  themselves  upon  which 
an  earlier  chapter  has  laid  stress.  Feeling,  as  such,  is  not  neces- 
sarily debarred  from  being  cognitive  in  its  nature;  it  too  may  and 
does,  in  certain  of  its  reaches,  participate  in  that  which  is  real. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  concerned  with  setting  forth  some  reasons 
for  holding  that  values  possess  objectivity,  and  that  they  need  not 
be  shadowy  projections  of,  or  mere  names  for,  feeling  and  desires. 
But,  to  halt  the  argument  here  would  be  to  leave  values  suspended 
in  a  void.  One  conies  away,  I  think,  from  the  study  of  many  writers 
who  defend  the  undefinable  and  objective  nature  of  the  good,  with 
a  feeling  that  it  is  all  abstract  and  remote.  After  all,  the  hedonists 
and  the  nominalists  and  the  Moral  Sense  writers  have  had  before 
them  the  actual  stuff  of  experience  as  it  is  lived.  Better  that,  one 
says,  than  a  ghostly  and  shadowy  good,  a  realm  of  values  distinct 
from  the  felt  immediacies  of  life.  But  is  it  a  fair  and  an  exhaustive 
alternative,  to  bid  us  choose  between  the  definition  of  the  good  in 
terms  of  pleasure  or  of  desire,  and  the  realism  of  Russell  and  of 
Moore?  I  shall  contend  that  it  is  not,  and  that  there  is  still  another 
possibility.  That  possibility  I  shall  now  outline  briefly,  leaving  to 
our  later  chapters  the  task  of  filling  it  in  and  giving  it  thickness 
and  concreteness.  What  we  are  now  to  set  forth,  together  with  its 
implications,  constitutes  as  well  the  heart  of  idealism  in  the  proper 
sense  of  that  term.  We  shall  here  state  two  theses  which  supplement 
each  other  and  which  are,  in  principle,  applicable  to  the  entire  range 
of  the  mind's  recognition  of  values.  We  shall  be  dealing  then  not 
only  with  the  values  which  accrue  to  goodness  but  to  knowledge 
as  well. 

The  first  thesis  is  a  statement  of  what  lies  at  the  basis  of  the  views 
which  we  have  been  criticizing  throughout,  and  especially  in  this 
chapter.  Experience  is  indeed  through  and  through  pervaded  by 
activity,  by  choice  and  discrimination,  desire  and  striving.  Expe- 
rience is  no  mere  presence  in  the  mind  of  certain  contents  of  con- 
sciousness; it  everywhere  exhibits  conation  and  activity.  We  wish 
then  to  lay  stress  upon  this  aspect  of  our  life  and  our  experience 
which  theories  of  voluntarism  and  instrumentalism  seize  upon  in 
varying  fashion  and  make  central  in  their  psychology,  ethics,  and 

[  159  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

metaphysics.  Let  us  at  once  observe  how  many  provinces  of  our  life 
there  are  which  exhibit  such  activity  and  conation,  the  unwillingness 
merely  to  accept  our  world  as  a  given  data,  but  the  desire  to  fashion 
it  and  control  it  to  some  purpose.  Let  us  view  these  varying  prov- 
inces as  illustrations  of  the  following  thesis:  The  mind  endlessly 
strives  to  reconstruct  its  world,  so  that  its  world  may  be  greeted  as, 
in  some  sense,  a  reflection  of  itself,  an  answer  to  its  questions,  an 
expression  of  its  meanings  and  purposes.  Only  in  an  order  which 
does  thus  respond  to  its  own  requirements  is  the  mind  willing  to 
acquiesce. 

First,  then,  there  is  democracy,  not  as  a  bare  form  of  government, 
but  as  a  spiritual  impulse  bidding  man  not  to  content  himself  with 
any  political  order  imposed  upon  him,  but  actively  to  construct  that 
order  so  that  it  does  respond  to  his  own  nature.  Only  such  an  order 
is  one  fit  for  man  to  live  in.  But,  secondly,  may  we  not  see  in  the 
very  nature  of  our  social  experience  and  our  recognition  of  our 
fellow  men  an  illustration  and  a  confirmation  of  this  thesis?  Our 
social  environment  is  no  bare  complex  of  facts,  of  neutral  entities 
thrust  upon  us  willy-nilly,  for  our  compulsory  acceptance.  Recog- 
nition, sympathy,  mutual  response  and  understanding,  these  are 
none  of  them  terms  which  can  apply  merely  to  what  we  find,  to 
what  confronts  us,  with  complete  indifference  as  to  its  inner  nature. 
We  learn,  indeed,  the  meaning  of  these  terms  in  our  social  experience 
where  soul  greets  soul  and  recognizes  a  genuine  Other,  sharing  with 
himself  common  interests  and  a  common  nature. 

And,  thirdly,  what  of  external  nature?  Are  we  willing  to  avow 
that  really  to  know  her  is  merely  to  classify  our  perceptual  expe- 
riences and  to  describe  the  regularity  of  their  sequences?  If  so,  we 
completely  shut  ourselves  off  from  two  significant  interests,  and  it 
is  well  that  we  should  realize  the  possibility  of  such  loss.  We  would, 
in  the  first  place,  cut  ourselves  off  from  all  those  deeper  experiences 
of  our  race,  expressed  in  its  art  and  its  poetry,  its  mythology  and  its 
religion,  and  which  find  in  nature  that  which  responds  to  some  of 
the  persistent  needs  of  the  human  spirit,  and  which  lets  us  view 
our  relations  to  nature  in  essentially  social  terms.  And  we  would, 
in  the  second  place,  remove  from  us  the  exact  sciences  which  seek 
to  discover  in  nature  the  embodiment  and  the  illustration  of  law 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

and  order,  of  reason  and  thought.  For,  be  it  noted,  neither  the  hidden 
meaning  which  nature  reveals  to  the  poet's  imagination  and  insight, 
nor  the  precise  mathematical  relationships  which  she  reveals  to  the 
physicist  are  facts  which  confront  us  and  which  we  literally  find. 
We  search  for  them,  and  finding  them,  we  acquiesce  and  delight 
in  them,  we  recognize  them  as  real  because,  in  the  last  analysis,  they 
greet  us  as  the  embodiments  of  our  own  meanings,  and  with  them 
and  with  the  nature  which  is  built  up  around  them,  we  may  and  we 
do  have  fellowship. 

Fourthly,  there  may  be  cited  the  wide  range  of  facts  and  situa- 
tions which  arise  from  the  basic  principle  that  wherever  there  is  a 
living  structure,  there  is  an  interest  which  seeks  to  sustain  itself 
over  against  its  world.  Introduce  an  organism  into  any  world  and 
at  once  the  objects  in  that  world  are  dichotomized.  Some  objects 
there  are  which  belong  to  the  animal's  actual  environment  and 
which  are  reckoned  with  and  responded  to  by  the  organism.  All 
other  objects  simply  do  not  enter  into  the  real  environment  of  the 
organism.  And,  too,  out  of  the  objects  which  are  practically  recog- 
nized and  reckoned  with,  the  organism  is  constantly  discriminating 
some  which  are  particularly  important,  as  food,  enemies,  etc.  These 
are  commonplaces  of  biology  and,  since  James  at  any  rate,  of 
psychology.  For  the  mind  selects  and  discriminates  no  less  than  does 
the  bodily  organism.  And  in  its  very  selection,  its  attention,  it  makes 
over  the  raw  material  of  sensations  into  the  more  or  less  coherent 
and  familiar  objects  of  perception.  Again,  of  course,  these  are 
commonplaces  of  psychology.  They  deserve,  however,  to  find  a  place 
here  in  the  summary  list  of  ways  in  which  the  active  and  transform- 
ing life  of  the  mind  manifests  itself.  It  is  but  an  extension  of  this 
basic  biological  fact  that  any  living  structure  has,  or  better,  is,  an 
organized  mass  of  interests  which  it  strives  to  assert  and  to  sustain, 
and  it  is  only  a  development  of  this  fact  which  leads  to  the  theories 
which  have  been  before  us  throughout  our  discussion.  Impulse, 
instinct,  and  desire  are  but  so  many  channels  through  which  the 
interests  and  the  life  of  organisms  do  maintain  themselves.  Why 
not,  then,  say  that  value  everywhere  is  but  the  satisfaction  which 
accrues  to  the  organism  in  the  maintenance  of  its  interests  and  in 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

the  successful  pursuit  of  its  desires?  Our  second  thesis  will  complete 
our  reply  to  this  question. 

Meanwhile,  and  finally,  there  is  that  in  the  philosophy  of  Kant 
which  I  would  cite  here  and  place  alongside  of  these  various  in- 
stances of  the  activity  of  the  mind  or  the  self.  Kant  is  the  first 
philosopher  definitely  to  break  with  the  "copy  theory"  of  knowl- 
edge. What  this  signifies  is  that,  for  Kant,  knowledge  is  something 
profoundly  different  from  that  which  it  was  in  the  entire  previous 
tradition  of  philosophy,  going  back  to  Plato  and  Aristotle.  For  Kant, 
the  mind  is  no  longer  a  mirror  of  reality;  it  is  rather  a  region  in 
which  there  occurs  an  endless  activity,  a  process  of  reconstruction 
and  arrangement  in  which  certain  data  are  ordered  in  accordance 
with  certain  norms  or  standards.  The  object  of  knowledge,  for 
science  and  for  practical  life,  is  the  rule  or  principle  which  deter- 
mines how  the  manifold  of  sensation  ought  to  be  set  in  order.14 

When  you  generalize  this  insight  you  will  have  nothing  less  than 
a  philosophical  statement  of  what  the  modern  man,  vastly  more 
than  the  medieval  or  the  Greek,  has  actually  undertaken  to  do.  He 
has  been  unwilling  to  accept  his  world  as  something  given.  He  seeks 
everywhere  to  organize,  control,  and  fashion  it.  This  is  autonomy, 
and  this  is  democracy  as  well.  This  is  why  Kant  is  so  preeminently 
the  philosopher  of  the  modern  age.  Because  he  happens  not  to  use 
the  language  of  biology,  because  he  is  dealing  not  with  the  behavior 
of  the  physical  organism  as  it  seeks  to  use  its  environment  in  the 
maintenance  of  its  interests,  but  with  the  activity  of  the  self,  as  it 
seeks  to  fashion  its  world,  in  knowledge,  in  history  and  society,  in 
art  and  in  religion, — all  of  this  is  no  reason  for  counting  him  old- 
fashioned  and  reactionary  or  a  mere  bypath  in  the  development  of 
modern  thought.  I  propose  to  call  this  entire  motive,  some  of  whose 
forms  we  have  been  so  hastily  viewing,  the  Kantian  element  in  our 
experience.  The  thesis  that  the  self  seeks  to  order  and  to  interpret 
its  world  so  as  to  find  therein  that  which  responds  to  its  own  nature 
and  interests,  we  shall  call  the  Kantian  thesis  in  the  structure  of 
idealism.  It  is  this  insight  which  is  indeed  hinted  at,  but  falsified 
and  blurred  in  the  Berkeleyan  doctrine  that  "to  be  real  means  to  be 

14  The  briefest  and  most  convincing  statement  of  this  interpretation  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  Kant's  theory  of  knowledge  is  the  Essay  on  Kant  in  Windelband's  "Praludien." 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

perceived."  But  there  is  another  insight  which  enters  into  the  fabric 
of  idealism.  It  is  an  insight  which,  in  our  life  and  our  practice,  our 
social  structures  and  our  interests,  seems  almost  forgotten.  I  shall 
call  it  the  Platonic  insight  and  thesis.  If  the  Kantian  insight  sums 
up  a  world  of  activity  and  of  democracy,  that  of  Plato  connotes 
stability,  possession,  certainty.  Let  us  here  state  the  thesis  simply 
as  an  hypothesis,  and  as  an  hypothesis  which  is  to  interpret  and  to 
render  intelligible  what  we  have  just  been  describing,  i.e.,  the 
mind's  activity  upon  and  reconstruction  of  the  data  presented  by 
experience.  This  activity,  whether  stated  in  terms  of  democracy,  or 
of  the  exact  sciences,  of  individual  and  national  expansion  and  self- 
consciousness,  of  voluntarism  and  behaviorism,  of  release  of  desire 
and  instinct  or  of  the  primacy  of  the  will, — in  whatever  language  it 
is  set  forth,  it  is  the  outstanding  characteristic  of  the  modern  age 
when  compared  with  the  medieval  world  or  with  antiquity.  Let  us 
frankly  accept  it,  but  let  us  ask  the  question,  what  makes  is  possible, 
what  shall  interpret  it,  what  shall  make  it  intelligible?  And,  in  asking 
this  question,  let  us  by  all  means  keep  in  mind  the  very  wide  range  of 
activity  which  is  here  in  question.  It  is  not  only  the  behavior  of  the 
bodily  organism,  but  the  deeds  of  active  selves  and  communities  in 
history  and  in  civilization  which  furnish  us  with  our  problem;  most 
of  the  deposits  left  behind  by  the  mind's  activity  are  such  as  wholly 
to  escape  the  observations  of  the  biologist  and  the  behaviorist.  The 
hypothesis,  then,  is  this:  Unless  the  mind  were  really  in  possession 
of  something  final  and  real,  unless  the  knowledge  of  that  which  might 
serve  it  as  a  norm  and  a  reality  belonged  intrinsically  to  its  own 
nature,  nothing  of  that  persistent  activity  of  the  mind  and  of  selves 
which  the  life  of  reason  exhibits,  would,  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  of 
history,  exist.  Were  there  no  unoriginated  knowledge,  the  possession 
of  which  is  a  function  of  intelligence  itself,  the  "mind"  would  be 
solely  the  deposit  and  the  echo  of  prior  matter-of-fact  processes; 
there  would  be  no  knowledge  at  all,  and  no  autonomous  values.  And 
there  would  be  no  such  striving  of  the  mind  to  build  up,  to  verify  and 
to  greet,  in  experience  and  in  nature,  an  order  which  responds  to  its 
own  life  and  its  own  interests.  This,  then,  is  our  hypothesis.  We  have 
called  it  the  Platonic  insight,  and  it  is  certainly  a  half  of  the  tradition 
of  idealism,  if  this  term  is  to  be  used  with  any  historic  justice. 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

We  may  conclude  this  chapter  by  presenting,  in  outline,  a  very 
formal  argument  which  may  indicate  something  of  the  meaning  of 
this  Platonic  thesis,  and  which  shall  relate  it  to  our  question  of  the 
objectivity  of  values.  An  earlier  chapter,  in  criticizing  the  Berkeley  an 
thesis,  set  forth  a  number  of  grounds  for  asserting  that  there  is  a 
difference  between  being  immediately  experienced  and  being  known 
to  be  real.  It  follows  that  the  mind  which  knows  that  something  is 
real  or,  in  other  words,  the  mind  which  really  knows,  must  possess 
some  knowledge  of  reality,  must  know  what  "to  be  real"  means,  and 
that  this  knowledge  cannot  itself  be  derived  from  experience.  Or, 
stating  it  in  other  words,  experienced  objects  announce  themselves 
to  the  mind.  They  need  no  introduction  and  no  credentials  in  order 
to  pass  for  experienced  entities.  Not  so  with  real  entities.  They  can- 
not simply  announce  themselves  precisely  because  only  some  "I  am 
here"  of  present  experience  can  announce  itself,  and  present  experi- 
ence simply  is  not  the  same  as  object  known  to  be  real.  And  once 
more,  this  judgment  which  has  reality  for  its  object,  this  acquaintance 
with  the  nature  of  reality,  cannot  by  any  possible  device,  be  regarded 
as  the  fruit  of  experience.  For  just  that  experience  must  have  been 
trusted  as  something  real,  or  capable  of  yielding  a  knowledge 
of  reality,  and  this  in  turn  implies  a  prior  knowledge  of  what  "to  be 
real"  means.  As  an  illustration  of  this  situation  I  shall  cite  what 
Royce  has  called  the  Religious  Paradox,  or  the  Paradox  of  Revela- 
tion. It  has,  however,  as  he  well  insists,  a  very  universal  meaning  for 
the  life  of  reason  and  of  knowledge  everywhere.  One  of  the  early 
problems  which  theology  had  to  face  was  that  of  the  relation  between 
knowledge  given  by  revelation,  and  such  other  knowledge,  if  any, 
which  the  human  mind  possessed  in  its  own  right,  or  at  least  inde- 
pendently of  any  revelation.  The  problem  is  one  which  is  analogous 
to  the  problem  concerning  the  relation  between  knowledge  conveyed 
by  experience,  and  such  other  knowledge,  if  any,  which  the  mind 
may  possess  in  its  own  right,  or  at  least  independently  of  experience. 
Now  in  the  case  of  revelation  it  became  apparent  to  the  clearest 
minded  of  the  Christian  theologians  that  revelation  is  not,  by  itself, 
sufficient  to  account  for,  or  to  justify  such  knowledge  as  was  com- 
monly ascribed  to  it.  I  do  not  refer  to  the  fact  that  these  theologians 
recognized  that  experience  and  reason,  could^of  themselves,  furnish 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

the  mind  with  some  truths,  and  hence  admitted  them  alongside  of 
revelation  as  sources  of  real  knowledge.  The  problem  lies  deeper  than 
that.  It  lies  in  the  fact  that  merely  having  a  revelation,  as  so  much 
present  experience,  is  not  identical  with  the  knowledge  that  that  reve- 
lation is  from  God,  and  is  therefore  valid.  Of  any  supposed  revela- 
tion, I  can  always  ask,  by  what  marks  do  I  recognize  that  this  is  a 
valid  revelation,  that  it  is  genuinely  from  God?  I  must  know  what  a 
valid  revelation,  i.e.,  one  from  God,  would  be  like,  before  I  can  know 
that  any  actual  experience  really  is  a  valid  revelation,  and  that 
knowledge  cannot  possibly  have  been  gained  through  revelation, 
because  the  same  question  would  recur  concerning  its  validity,  and  so 
on  for  each  prior  revelation.  No,  in  the  language  of  Professor  Royce, 
the  mind  must  first  know  God's  autograph,  before  it  can  know  that  a 
revelation  is  valid,  and  that  knowledge  cannot  have  been  gained 
through  revelation.  "Every  acceptance  of  a  revelation  depends  upon 
something  that,  in  the  individual's  mind,  must  be  prior  to  this  accept- 
ance."15 One  sees  here  that  the  whole  point  lies  in  observing  the  differ- 
ence between  having  a  revelation,  as  so  much  content  of  conscious- 
ness in  one's  mind,  and  knowing  that  it  is  a  true,  a  valid,  revelation. 
Substitute  in  this  illustration  the  word  "experience,"  for  the  word 
"revelation,"  and  you  have  precisely  the  situation  which  genuine 
idealism  has  seen  and  whose  lesson  it  has  sought  to  learn. 

A  precisely  analogous  statement  is  to  be  made  in  the  region  of 
Etliics,  and  in  relation  to  the  mind's  knowledge  of  the  good.  In  the 
world  of  conduct,  that  which  corresponds  to  immediacy,  to  experi- 
ence in  the  world  of  knowledge,  is  desire.  Desire,  felt  activity,  want, 
these  are  all  experienced  feelings.  Is  there  any  difference  between 
that  which  is  good,  and  that  which  is  desired?  Or,  to  call  anything 
good,  is  not  that  simply  a  name  for  the  experienced  fact  that  I,  either 
my  apparent  or  my  true  self,  desire  something?  Now  idealism  in 
Ethics,  or  what  is  often  called  the  self-realization  theory,  has  usually 
been  supposed  to  say  just  this,  to  say  with  Hume,  that  actions  are 
good  because  we  approve  of  them,  and  we  do  not  approve  of  them 
because  they  are  good.  Only,  idealism  has  insisted  that  it  must  be  the 
real,  the  standard  self  which  does  the  approving.  If  such  idealism 
had  only  said  that  it  must  be  the  good  self  which  does  the  approving, 

15  "The  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,"  p.  23. 

[  165  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

it  would  have  seen  the  circularity  of  its  statement.  The  fact  is,  once 
more,  there  is  a  difference  between  psychological,  experienced  desire, 
and  the  recognition  that  the  object  of  desire  is  good.  And,  unless  the 
mind  knows  what  "good"  means,  independently  of  desire,  it  cannot 
say  that  an  experienced  desire  is  or  is  not  good,  just  as  the  mind  can- 
not say  that  an  experience  is  real  unless  it  first  knows  what  reality 
is,  and  just  as  no  revelation  can  be  a  real  revelation,  unless  the  mind 
first  knows  the  essential  characteristics  of  a  valid  revelation. 

This  Platonic  insight,  then,  claims  for  the  life  of  Reason  an  ulti- 
mate and  indisputable  metaphysical  possession.  There  is  here,  I  am 
convinced,  a  veritable  ontological  argument  for  the  mind's  knowledge 
of  reality  which  no  criticism  can  dislodge.  For  criticism  of  arguments, 
like  the  criticism  of  experience  as  real  or  unreal,  itself  presupposes 
something  on  which  it  stands,  some  prior  acquaintance  with  Reality. 
The  Platonic  principle  thus  expresses  a  sense  of  givenness,  of  living 
and  knowing  in  a  world  not  empty,  not  devoid  of  all  but  our  own 
activity.  There  is  a  greeting  of  Reality  in  our  knowledge  and  our 
living,  our  desiring  and  our  striving,  not  any  mere  acquiescence  in 
the  data  of  experience.  This  Platonic  insight  is  to  be  seized  upon, 
made  concrete,  and  put  to  work  in  our  modern  thought  and  life.  For, 
in  the  end,  we  must  learn  that  a  reality  defined  wholly  in  terms  of 
creative  activity,  in  terms  of  the  release  of  impulse  and  the  satisfac- 
tion of  desire,  is  empty  and  hollow.  A  world  which  is  only  the  setting 
for  our  own  activity,  whether  wayward  and  capricious  as  conceived 
by  romanticism,  or  stern  and  heroic  such  as  a  Fichte  demanded,  is 
no  real  world.  All  significant  activity  presupposes  a  real  world  to 
seize  upon,  to  interpret,  to  participate  in  and  to  make  one's  own.  Yet, 
if  we  only  retain  such  a  Platonic  motive,  uncorrected  by  the  cumula- 
tive experiences  and  needs  of  the  modern  world,  how  inadequately 
will  we  define  that  reality,  the  contemplation  and  knowledge  of 
which  is  the  inherent  nature  of  intelligence.  If  we  neglect  our  first 
thesis,  we  will  do  as  the  more  reflective  and  profound  realisms  have 
done,  define  reality  not  in  terms  of  experience,  but  in  terms  of  uni- 
versals,  having  being  or  validity,  and  wholly  independent  of  our 
activity  and  our  knowing.  Such  realisms  have  sprung  up  as  an  inevi- 
table and  salutary  correction  of  the  romanticisms,  the  pseudo-ideal- 
isms and  the  philosophies  of  sheer  activity,  which  modern  thought, 

r  166  1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  AUTONOMY  OF  VALUES 

especially  in  the  last  century,  has  witnessed.  Our  first  thesis,  the 
Kantian  ingredient  of  idealism,  tells  us  that  neither  reality  nor 
experience  is  merely  enjoyed  and  contemplated  from  a  distance. 
It  tells  us  that  reason,  that  mind,  is  not  an  empty  spectator  of  truths 
and  entities,  the  locus  in  which  things  happen  to  get  known  together. 
It  points  out  that  experience  is  not  merely  a  possession,  but  is  an 
activity,  a  searching  for  self-completion  and  self-possession.  It  points 
out  that  if  the  world  of  history,  of  the  partial  achievement  of  knowl- 
edge, of  justice,  of  social,  moral,  and  religious  ends, — that  if  this 
world  is  real  and  significant,  it  can  only  be  because  these  various 
things  fulfill  the  wants  and  express  the  interests  of  minds.  Minds  do 
not  merely  survey  the  on-goings  of  history;  they  make  history,  and 
in  so  doing  they  live  their  own  lives. 

Thus  it  is  that  each  of  these  two  principles  is  necessary.  The  real 
world  is  both  that  which  we  find  and  appropriate,  which  environs  us 
and  our  activity,  but  the  real  world  is  alsOj  not  something  whose 
nature  it  is  just  to  be  independent  of  our  activity  and  our  experience. 
It  is  continuous  with  our  ways  of  knowing,  it  expresses  meanings 
which  we  understand  because  they  are  ours.  Not  otherwise  could 
our  world  possess  meaning,  or  intelligibility,  or  reality.  But  this  is 
all,  as  yet,  utterly  formal  and  abstract.  It  need  not  remain  so,  how- 
ever, and  our  remaining  chapters  will  be  devoted  to  a  study  of  certain 
regions  in  which  the  fusion  of  these  two  insights  and  doctrines  is 
definite  and  concrete. 


[  167  ] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR, 
MIND  AND  BODY 

view,  briefly  stated  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that 
the  mind  does  possess  in  its  own  right  a  knowledge  of 
reality,  that  such  participation  in  an  objective,  signifi- 
cant order  is  a  function  of  its  own  nature,  this  view  is 
not  as  strange  as  may  at  first  appear.  One  reason  why 
it  may  strike  us  as  paradoxical  is  that  we  have  accustomed  ourselves 
to  accept  uncritically  a  certain  assumption.  Whenever  we  confront 
anything  complex,  anything  which  exists  "high  up"  or  far  along  in 
an  evolutionary  series,  we  tend  to  suppose  that  all  of  the  properties 
and  functions  which  attach  to  the  complex  structure  as  a  whole  must 
be  themselves  derivative,  compounded  of  the  properties  and  func- 
tions of  more  elementary  units,  and,  in  a  sense,  artificial  and  unreal. 
Thus  it  is  that  we  say,  since  the  sense  of  duty  and  obligation  is  some- 
thing which  does  manifestly  have  a  history,  since  it  is  built  up  on  the 
basis  of  a  more  elementary  susceptibility  to  pleasure  and  pain,  that 
therefore  all  of  its  characteristics,  over  and  above  its  pleasure-pain 
aspects,  are  problematic  and  derived.  None  of  the  distinctive  quali- 
ties of  conscience  as  such,  so  we  suppose,  can  be  unique,  belonging 
to  conscience  itself  rather  than  to  the  earlier  and  more  elementary 
things  which  preceded  conscience.  It  is  as  if  one  should  say  that 
since  calculus  must  be  preceded  by  algebra  and  analytic  geometry 
or  some  more  elementary  mathematics,  therefore  calculus  cannot 
possess  any  characteristics  which  belong  uniquely  to  it  and  are 
not  merely  further  prolongations  and  elaborations  of  the  concepts 
and  truths  which  belong  to  arithmetic.  We  might  speak  of  the  fallacy 
here  in  question  as  the  fallacy  of  undue  simplification.  And  this 
fallacy  has  one  consequence  to  which  attention  may  here  be  called. 

[  169  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Under  the  influence  of  this  fallacy,  we  are  constantly  led  to  suppose 
that  exercise  of  the  characteristic  functions  of  any  entity  is  the  prob- 
lem to  be  explained,  while  a  lapse  from  or  a  cessation  of  such  normal 
functions  is  the  expected  thing  and  requires  no  explanation.  An  illus- 
tration from  another  field  will  make  this  clearer,  and  I  take  the  illus- 
tration from  a  scientist  who  surely  suffers  from  no  bias  in  the  direc- 
tion of  mysticism  or  idealism.  We  constantly  tend  to  think  and  to 
speak  as  if  the  life  of  organisms  were  the  mysterious  thing,  the  thing 
requiring  explanation,  and  as  if  the  death  of  organisms  were  the 
natural  and  the  expected  thing.  It  is  with  reference  to  this  prejudice 
that  Loeb  writes  (and  I  quote  the  passage  at  some  length) :  "The 
idea  that  the  body  cells  are  naturally  immortal  and  die  only  if 
exposed  to  extreme  injuries  such  as  prolonged  lack  of  oxygen  or  too 
high  a  temperature  helps  to  make  our  problem  more  intelligible.  The 
medical  student,  who  for  the  first  time  realizes  that  life  depends  upon 
that  one  organ,  the  heart,  doing  its  duty  incessantly  for  the  seventy 
years  or  so  allotted  to  man,  is  amazed  at  the  precariousness  of  our 
existence.  It  seems  indeed  uncanny  that  so  delicate  a  mechanism 
should  function  so  regularly  for  so  many  years.  The  mysticism  con- 
nected with  this  and  other  phenomena  of  adaptation  would  tend  to 
disappear  if  we  could  be  certain  that  all  cells  are  really  immortal  and 
that  the  fact  which  demands  an  explanation  is  not  the  continued 
activity  but  the  cessation  of  activity  in  death.  Thus  we  see  that  the 
idea  of  the  immortality  of  the  body  cell,  if  it  can  be  generalized,  may 
be  destined  to  become  one  of  the  main  supports  for  a  complete 
physico-chemical  analysis  of  life  phenomena  since  it  makes  the  dura- 
bility of  organisms  intelligible."1 

Many  questions  arise  as  to  the  significance  of  the  conception  which 
is  here  set  forth.  Of  interest  to  us  here  are  the  possibilities  which  it 
suggests  when  carried  over  from  the  conception  of  life  to  the  concep- 
tion of  mind.  Seen  in  this  light,  the  problematic  and  mysterious  thing 
is  not  that  knowledge  should  exist,  but  that  the  mind  should  exhibit 
the  limitations  and  restrictions  which  experience  shows  it  to  possess. 
Such  a  general  conception  of  the  life  and  function  of  consciousness 
receives  an  added  significance  when  we  come  to  realize  that  the  life 
of  the  mind  cannot  be  thought  of  simply  as  a  prolongation  of  the  life 

iLoeb:  "The  Organism  as  a  Whole,"  p.  32. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

and  interests  of  the  body.  For,  when  we  bring  home  to  our  reflection 
and  our  imagination  the  undoubted  truth  that  the  brain  is  solely  an 
instrument  of  action  and  of  behavior,  of  the  adaptation  of  response 
to  stimulus,  we  see  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  but  two  alternatives  con- 
front us.  Either  "knowledge"  is  merely  an  incident  in  the  processes 
of  behavior  and  adaptation,  or  else  the  brain  does  not  generate,  in 
any  real  sense  whatever,  the  life  of  mind  and  of  knowledge.  The  brain 
and  the  bodily  behavior  which  it  controls  will  be  (in  the  latter  case) 
but  a  principle  of  selection  and  of  limitation,  not  creating  the  fact 
that  knowledge  exists,  but  determining,  in  part,  which,  among  all  the 
real  objects  of  knowledge,  are  the  ones  which  shall  at  the  moment 
come  before  the  mind.  Readers  of  Bergson  will  see  the  similarity 
between  the  thesis  here  set  forth  and  the  course  of  the  argument  in 
"Matiere  et  Memoire."2 

But  the  question  persists,  are  we  confident  that  the  first  of  the  two 
alternatives  is  really  to  be  excluded?  Is  not  knowledge,  in  the  end,  to 
be  assimilated  to  behavior  and  to  adaptation,  so  that  all  the  inter- 
ests of  life  which  are  really  pertinent  to  our  world  and  to  our  needs, 
are  such  as  have  to  do  with  the  control  of  our  environment  for  the 
satisfaction  of  our  desires?  I  propose  in  this  chapter  to  consider  this 
question  by  turning  to  some  of  life's  major  interests  and  seeing  the 
part  there  played  by  behavior  or  adaptation  on  the  one  hand,  and 
by  knowledge,  contemplation,  or  possession  on  the  other.  We  shall 
observe  certain  limitations  upon  those  attitudes  and  interests  which 

2  Professor  N.  K.  Smith  has  done  a  service  in  reminding  us  of  the  kinship  between 
Bergson  and  Avenarius  hi  holding  that  "the  brain  is  in  no  sense  the  seat  or  organ  of 
conscious  life,  that  its  function  is  purely  motor  and  never  cognitive."  Nevertheless, 
there  is  for  Avenarius  a  fundamental  parallelism  between  the  vital,  organic  series  and 
the  conscious  series.  And  this  parallelism  tends  to  be  stressed  not  only  hi  respect  to 
the  structure  of  the  two  series,  but  hi  respect  to  their  function  as  well.  The  result  is 
that  Avenarius  approximates  to  the  first  of  the  two  alternative  views  above  mentioned. 
What  you  can  say  about  the  brain,  that  you  can  also  say,  substantially,  about  con- 
sciousness. One  has  only  to  give  up  the  artificial  and  puzzling  parallelism  of  Avenarius 
to  reach  the  full-fledged  realism  and  behaviorism  of  Mach  and  the  others.  Speaking 
further  of  Bergson,  Professor  Smith  continues:  "Bergson's  problem  isn't  to  account 
for  consciousness.  By  right  it  is  knowledge  of  true,  independent  reality,  really  it  is 
limited,  permeated  with  illusion,  and  largely  personal.  True  knowledge  consists  in 
emancipation  from  the  tyranny  of  practical  needs."  "Subjectivism  and  Realism  in 
Modern  Philosophy,"  Philosophical  Review,  1908. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

may  be  called  pragmatic,  and  which  the  philosophies  which  are  the 
outgrowth  of  biological  concepts  have  so  insistently  stressed.  There 
will  pass  before  us  in  review  a  number  of  regions  in  our  experience 
which  simply  cannot  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  stimulus  and  re- 
sponse, activity  and  control.  This  chapter  will  be  just  to  this  extent 
a  critique  of  instrumentalism. 

I  shall  cite  first  an  aspect  of  our  world  which  is  utterly  pervasive 
and  which  has  ever  impressed  itself  upon  men's  imaginations.  I  mean 
the  tragic  aspect  of  experience  and  of  life.  Now,  wherever  there  is 
tragedy  there  is  always  one  salient  feature  of  the  situation  which  we 
do  well  to  reflect  upon  in  trying  to  estimate  the  comprehensiveness 
and  the  adequacy  of  the  pragmatic  concepts.  In  any  situation  which 
is  tragic  there  are  forces  at  work  over  which  man  has  no  control 
whatever,  and  no  possibility  of  any  control.  The  spectator — and  for 
that  matter  the  participant  also — is  provided  with  no  clew,  no  stimu- 
lus, which  is  able  to  initiate  a  response,  a  behavior  series,  able  to 
relieve  the  situation  and  solve  the  problems.  This  is  of  course  not  the 
whole  of  the  tragic  situation,  but  it  is  one  aspect  of  it.  In  the  words 
of  Bradley,  "That  men  may  start  a  course  of  events  but  can  neither 
calculate  nor  control  it,  is  a  tragic  fact."3  It  is  the  inevitable  yet 
uncontrollable  consequences  of  men's  free  deeds,  of  their  initiative 
and  their  behavior  itself  which  is  here  in  question.4  Now  the  tragic 
fact  conceals  what  may  appear  to  be  a  paradox.  It  presents  us  with 
suffering,  with  conflict,  with  baffling  circumstances.  In  most,  perhaps 
all,  other  instances  where  we  find  such  things,  they  come  to  us  as 
stimuli  calling  for  some  adaptive  behavior.  We  seek  to  remove  the 
difficulty,  to  heal  the  suffering,  and  to  restore  the  untroubled  func- 
tioning of  life's  interests  once  again.  But  this  is  precisely  what  cannot 
be  done  in  the  presence  of  tragedy.  Here  we  are  helpless;  there  is  no 
transition  from  the  stimulus  to  the  particular  response  which  will 
"adapt  the  organism  to  the  requirements  of  its  environment."  Prag- 
matism has  here  nothing  whatever  to  say.  And  yet — this  is  the  para- 

3  "Shakespearean  Tragedy,"  p.  15. 

4  Cf.  Simmel:  "Moralwissenschaft,"  vol.  2,  p.  183.  "Unserer  Freiheit  entfesselt  Krafte 
uber  die  sie  nicht  mehr  Herr  1st,  sie  ruft  Geister  die  sie  nicht  mehr  los  ist."  T.  H. 
Green  also  speaks  of  "the  tragic  conflict  between  the  creative  will  of  man  and  the 
hidden  wisdom  of  the  world."  "Works,"  vol.  3,  p.  278. 

[  '7*  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

dox — we  certainly  do  not,  in  the  best  and  deepest  moments  of  our 
experience,  judge  the  tragic  situation  to  be  merely  a  baffling  and 
unknown  x,  a  world  of  forces  which  is  quite  beyond  all  apprehension 
and  which  is  wholly  without  significance.  We  do  not  say,  since  all 
adaptive  and  useful  behavior  is  here  out  of  the  question  that  there- 
fore there  is  nothing  to  do  save  to  turn  our  faces  away  in  sheer  des- 
peration. This  is  what  we  ought  to  do  if  the  significance  which  objects 
possess  were  merely  a  function  of  their  ability  to  satisfy  our  needs, 
solve  our  particular  problems,  initiate  a  useful  adaptation.  It  is  far 
more  true  to  say,  again  with  Bradley,  that  "the  representation  of 
(tragedy)  does  not  leave  us  crushed,  rebellious  or  desperate."  We 
find  in  the  total  tragic  complex  a  source  of  meaning;  we  may  even 
say  that  not  willingly  would  we  lose  from  our  world  just  this  wealth 
of  meaning  which  inheres  in  the  tragic  situation.  In  the  routine  of 
experience  as  pictured  by  the  instrumentalist  and  behaviorist,  in 
the  cycle  leading  from  the  problem  yielding  the  stimulus  to  the 
response  furnishing  the  solution  of  the  problem,  there  is  no  place  for 
tragedy.  Here  is  a  non-pragmatic  interest  and  attitude,  because  it 
falls  completely  outside  of  those  concepts  in  terms  of  which  instru- 
mentalism,  following  the  lead  of  biology,  does  its  thinking. 

I  turn  abruptly  to  another  field.  The  metaphysical  problem  of 
time,  it  has  often  been  pointed  out,  exhibits  certain  analogies  with 
certain  problems  arising  from  the  analysis  of  typical  attitudes  within 
our  experience.  We  observed  something  of  this  in  the  preceding 
chapter  when  we  were  pointing  out  how  small  is  the  range  of  possible 
stimuli  to  behavior  when  compared  with  the  range  of  possible 
objects  of  knowledge.  The  past  cannot  interest  us  practically  as,  say, 
either  the  present  or  the  future.  Just  as  the  past  can  never  be  a  genu- 
ine stimulus  because  it  is  no  longer  "real,"  so  it  is  not  subject  to  any 
"control."  It  is  irrevocable  and  unalterable.  In  this  respect  it  is 
similar  to  the  tragic  fact,  and  like  tragedy  it  quite  escapes  the  accred- 
ited rubric  and  sanction  of  pragmatism.  But  it  is  not  so  much  this 
aspect  of  the  time  order  which  I  wish  to  stress  here.  It  is  rather  the 
relation  in  which  customarily  and  certainly  under  the  influence  of 
pragmatic  habits  of  thought  we  view  the  relation  between  past, 
present,  and  future.  Considered  exclusively  in  its  pragmatic  and 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

instrumental  significance,  every  object  in  the  environment  which  is 
perceived  and  attended  to  is  a  signal  for  some  appropriate  response. 
It  is  but  the  beginning  of  a  reflex  arc.  Knowledge  and  reflection  are 
instruments  of  action  and  behavior.  Now  it  is  not  at  all  strange  that 
this  relationship  between  stimulus  and  behavior  should  be  carried 
over  to  the  relationship  between  succeeding  intervals  of  time,  in  such 
fashion  that  any  moment  or  period  of  time  may  be  said  to  be  simply 
a  signal  and  a  preparation  for  some  following  moment  of  time.  Of 
any  such  definite  period  of  time,  then,  it  will  be  said  that  its  value 
lies  not  at  all  in  itself,  but  wholly  in  that  for  which  it  is  but  a  prepa- 
ration and,  as  it  were,  a  stimulus.  Let  us  see  the  way  in  which  this 
works  out  in  certain  familiar  regions  and  concepts.  It  enters,  for 
instance,  into  the  meaning  of  the  concept  "progress."  We  tend  to 
think  of  the  past  as  inevitably  preparing  the  way  for  the  present,  and 
so  we  suppose  that  the  present  is  a  solution  of  the  problems  and 
difficulties  which  the  past  contained,  and  that  the  future  will  solve 
our  problems.  Just  so,  the  response  which  follows  the  stimulus  is 
thought  of  as  a  solution  of  the  problem  offered  by  the  situation 
implied  by  the  stimulus.  But  the  response  proves,  in  its  turn,  to 
develop  into  another  problem  just  as  the  present  which  follows  upon 
the  past  is  in  turn  followed  by  the  future.  There  is  no  resting  place 
and  there  is  no  intrinsic  meaning  or  value  possessed  by  any  one 
period  of  time  in  its  own  right.  And  consequently  there  is  some- 
thing problematic  and  perhaps  hollow  about  the  very  notion  of 
progress.  If  each  moment  of  history  is  merely  a  preparation  for 
what  follows  then  no  moment  of  history  has  any  intrinsic  value. 
But  in  this  case  there  is  no  progress;  every  moment  of  time  is  pre- 
cisely on  a  level  with  every  other  moment,  always  leading  on  to  a 
next  moment  and  never  coming  into  possession  of  any  inherent  and 
final  value.  All  of  this  is  obviously  correlated  with  the  most  central 
characteristics  of  the  modern  industrial  order  in  which  the  economic 
cycle  does  not  terminate  in  the  consumption  of  the  goods  which 
have  been  produced,  but  such  consumption  is,  in  its  turn,  merely  a 
stimulus  for  further  production.  There  is  a  pregnant  saying  of 
Ranke,  the  historian,  which  is  often  quoted,  and  which  contains,  I 
believe,  the  clew  to  the  proper  estimate  and  interpretation  of  this 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

whole  motive.  "Jede  Epoche  ist  unmittelbar  zu  Gott."5  In  some 
fashion  are  we  to  view  every  age,  every  moment  of  time  as  possess- 
ing an  inherent  worth  and  significance  of  its  own.  Its  entire  meaning 
is  not  exhausted  in  its  existence  as  a  preparation  for  and  a  means 
to  some  future  moment.  This  is,  I  think,  one  way  of  expressing  the 
real  sense  of  eternity  and  of  setting  forth  the  limitations  which 
inhere  in  a  time  order  conceived  solely  in  terms  of  mere  succession. 
Every  fragment  of  time,  every  pulse  of  the  flux  of  experience  par- 
ticipates in  eternity;  it  is  in  possession  of  some  significant  structure 
which  is,  in  some  determinate  sense,  final  and  inclusive.  This  insight 
has,  too,  practical  implications  for  various  human  interests.  It  means 
in  education,  for  instance,  that  the  education  of  the  child  is  not 
merely  a  process  of  training  the  child  to  live  in  the  future.  Child- 
hood is  not  only  a  precursor  and  a  means  to  the  attainment  of  adult 
life.  Childhood  has  its  own  interests;  it  too  participates  in  inherent 
values.  Education  is  not  exclusively,  perhaps  not  even  primarily,  a 
preparation  for  life;  it  is  life.  The  interests  of  childhood  have  their 
own  worth  and  their  own  justification  apart  from  their  being  the 
stimuli  whereby  the  more  mature  interests  of  the  adult  are  prepared 
for  in  advance. 

There  is  a  third  region  which  offers  an  excellent  opportunity  to 
try  out  the  adequacy  of  the  interests  of  use  and  of  control.  It  is  the 
region  of  our  social  life  and  our  social  interests,  and  this  includes 
very  much  indeed.  I  shall  touch  only  upon  such  matters  as  may  best 
illustrate  the  contrast  between  the  categories  of  behavior  and  of 
knowledge,  action  and  thought,  control  and  possession.  And  first, 
there  is  the  very  pervasive  belief  that  the  whole  province  of  our 
social  life  and  interests  presents  us  primarily  with  situations  which 
are  first  to  be  understood  through  a  scientific  analysis,  and  are  then 
to  be  mastered  and  controlled.  It  is  the  ideal  of  Bacon,  of  the 

5  The  entire  passage  is  worth  quoting :  "Eine  solche  gleichsam  mediatisierte  Genera- 
tion wiirde  an  und  fur  sich  eine  Bedeutung  nicht  haben;  sie  wiirde  nur  insofern  etwas 
bedeuten  als  sie  Stufe  der  nachfolgenden  Generation  ware,  and  wiirde  nicht  im  un- 
mittelbaren  Bezug  zum  Gottlichen  stehen.  Ich  aber  behaupte:  Jede  Epoche  ist  un- 
mittelbar zu  Gott,  und  ihr  Wert  beruht  gar  nicht  auf  dem,  was  aus  ihr  hervorgeht, 
sondern  in  ihr  Existenz  selbst,  in  ihrem  eigenen  Selbst."  "Ueber  die  Epochen  der 
neueren  Geschichte,"  i  Vortrag. 

[  175 1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Encyclopedists,  of  Comte  and,  reinforced  by  the  teachings  of  nine- 
teenth century  biology,  it  is  the  ideal  of  contemporary  instrumen- 
talism.  Knowledge  is  for  the  sake  of  power.  Science — which  means 
all  precise  and  verifiable  knowledge — shall  yield  to  man  an  instru- 
ment for  fashioning  his  life  and  his  world,  for  controlling  phenomena 
through  an  understanding  of  their  causes.  This  essentially  modern 
ideal  of  knowledge  is,  we  have  seen,  the  intellectual  counterpart 
both  of  democracy  and  of  the  forces  which  have  made  the  modern 
industrial  order.  The  world  exists  to  be  mastered  and  used.  But  it 
has  not  been  sufficiently  observed,  I  think,  how  real  and  how  deep 
are  the  relations  existing  between  the  "Enlightenment"  utilitarianism 
of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  "Esse  est  percipi"  of  Berkeley. 
Subjectivism  is,  in  reality,  but  a  variety  of  utilitarianism.  Each  of 
these  does  but  utter  a  common  motive  and  a  common  attitude.  For, 
let  anyone  say  of  an  object  that  he  is  interested  in  it  only  to  the 
extent  that  he  can  control  it,  i.e.,  only  to  the  extent,  say,  to  which  it 
contains  nothing  tragic  and  does  not  lie  in  the  past,  then  he  is  view- 
ing that  object  exclusively  from  the  contribution  which  it  makes  to 
his  own  life.  He  is  indeed  ego-centric.  The  object  is  envisaged  en- 
tirely as  his  own  immediate  possession.  And  what  does  it  mean  to 
say  that  the  world  is  my  idea,  if  not  this  ?  That  which  belongs  to  an 
object  in  itself,  that  which  exceeds  the  limits  of  perception,  has  for 
us  no  practical  significance.  The  imperceptible,  the  being  of  an 
object  other  than  its  percipi,  is  in  this  respect  like  the  past.  It  cannot 
serve  as  a  stimulus  to  behavior.  Berkeley  is  undoubtedly  very  much 
under  the  influence  of  the  pragmatic  attitude.  It  shows  itself,  for 
instance,  in  his  belief  that  the  sole  significance  of  mathematics  lies 
in  its  being  "subservient  to  practice"  and  in  promoting  "the  benefit 
of  life."  "Hence  we  may  see,"  he  concludes,  "how  entirely  the 
science  of  numbers  is  subordinate  to  practice,  and  how  jejune  and 
trifling  it  becomes  when  considered  as  a  matter  of  mere  specula- 
tion."6 It  is  only  when  one's  interest  terminates  in  some  object 
itself,  when  it  is  indeed  a  real  object  and  not  merely  a  stimulus,  it 

6  "Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  S  119  and  120.  My  attention  was  called  to 
this  connection  between  the  utilitarian  interest  and  the  Berkeley  an  doctrine  by  remarks 
of  Mr.  Clement  C.  J.  Webb  in  his  "Problems  in  the  Relations  of  God  and  Man,"  p. 
29,  where  specific  reference  is  made  to  the  above  passages  from  Berkeley. 

[  176  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

is  only  through  a  non-utilitarian  and  non-pragmatic  interest  that 
subjectivism  and  the  ego-centric  difficulty  are  overcome. 

How  is  it,  then,  we  ask,  with  the  social  order  and  with  the  life 
of  our  fellow  men?  Is  the  interest  which  we  rightfully  have  in  the 
knowledge  of  other  minds,  of  all  the  varied  wealth  which  the  social 
order  offers  to  us,  of  the  world  of  history  and  of  the  past, — is  this 
all  to  be  subsumed  under  the  pragmatic  interest  or  does  it  contain 
at  least  certain  reaches  and  aspects  which  can  be  understood  only 
in  the  light  of  interests  and  attitudes  which  are  non-pragmatic?  Is 
the  social  order  an  object  to  be  apprehended  and  appreciated  be- 
cause of  its  own  inherent  wealth  of  meaning,  or  is  it  a  stimulus, 
significant  because  we  need  to  reckon  with  it  as  a  kind  of  thing 
which  our  environment  contains?  Let  us  state  the  question  some- 
what more  concretely  thus:  The  world  of  society  and  of  human  life 
is  full  of  problems,  conflicts  and  difficulties.  The  enormous  success 
of  modern  science  in  winning  control  and  mastery  over  the  energies 
of  the  physical  order  leads  irresistibly  to  the  hope  of  extending  this 
success  to  the  world  of  human  society.  An  adequate  sociology, 
psychology,  etc.,  will  accomplish  here  what  an  adequate  physics 
and  mechanics  have  accomplished  for  industry  and  inventions,  and 
what  an  adequate  chemistry,  physiology  and  pathology  have  accom- 
plished for  medicine.  Nothing  is  needed  in  principle,  save  sciences 
wrhich  are  wholly  positive  and  empirical.  It  is  this  ideal  and  this  hope 
which,  first  clearly  formulated  by  Bacon,  enters  profoundly  into  the 
thought  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  through  the 
labors  of  Locke  and  the  Encyclopedists,  and  is  continued  in  the 
utilitarianism  of  Bentham  and  Mill,  and  furnishes  the  dominant 
inspiration  to  contemporary  instrumentalism.  Is  this  hope  well 
founded?  No  one  will  wisely  set  limits  to  man's  control,  through 
knowledge,  over  his  social  environment.  Yet  doubts  insistently 
present  themselves  as  to  the  adequacy  of  this  idea.  For,  it  must  be 
asked,  after  all,  whether  our  most  pressing  and  our  most  tragic 
problems  in  the  social  and  political  life  of  men  exist  because  we  do 
not  as  yet  possess  the  scientific,  i.e.,  the  causal  knowledge  which 
would  enable  us  to  solve  these  problems.  Such  is  unquestionably  the 
source  of  our  failure  thus  far  to  control,  say,  certain  diseases.  We  do 
not  know,  in  their  entirety,  certain  causal  sequences.  Until  such 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

knowledge  is  gained,  we  are  helpless.  We  possess,  indeed,  very  little, 
if  any,  sure  and  certain  knowledge  of  causal  sequences  in  history  and 
in  any  of  the  larger  social  processes,  but  is  this  lack,  great  though 
it  be,  responsible  for  the  baffling  social  confusions  amidst  which 
we  live?  Would  a  positive  science  of  society  give  us,  in  principle, 
the  clew  to  the  solution  of  our  problems?  I  cannot  believe  that  it 
would.  The  true  source  of  our  problems  lies  elsewhere,  in  a  situation 
which  has  no  counterpart  in  the  physical  order.  A  disease  is  baffling 
because  we  are  ignorant  of  certain  causal  sequences;  a  social  or 
political  situation  is  baffling  and  problematic  because  it  contains 
a  conflict  of  wills,  of  interests  and  of  loyalties.  No  amount  of  posi- 
tive science,  of  knowledge  of  bare  facts  and  of  causal  sequences 
will  enable  us  to  control  a  social  situation,  to  heal  the  mortal  con- 
flicts and  to  bind  up  the  wounds  of  the  social  body.  This  distinction 
and  this  general  principle,  which  I  believe  to  be  of  fundamental 
importance  as  a  matter  of  methodology  in  dealing  with  all  the  prac- 
tical problems  touching  the  organization  of  life,  need  not  here  be 
further  developed.  What  it  points  to  is  just  the  difficulty  which 
inheres  in  any  attempt  to  view  the  social  order  merely  as  material 
to  be  manipulated  and  controlled  by  means  of  an  applied  science 
resting  upon  a  theoretical  science.7 

The  consciousness  of  this  difficulty  lies  at  the  basis  of  a  distinction 
which  students  of  society  have  found  it  necessary  to  make  use  of, 
the  distinction,  namely,  between  society  and  community,  Gesell- 
schajt  and  Gemeinschajt.  The  distinction  is  an  important  one  and 
bears  directly  upon  this  question  as  to  how  far  our  interest  in  our 
fellow  men  is  fairly  to  be  called  a  pragmatic  interest,  describable 
in  terms  of  behavior,  of  stimulus,  and  response.  There  are,  indeed, 
social  relationships  governed  predominantly  by  interest  and  by 
the  division  of  labor.  Such  are,  above  all,  the  economic  relations 
and  the  logic  of  such  a  type  of  social  organization  is  best  set  forth 
in  the  writings  of  the  classical  English  economists.  I  associate  myself 
with  my  fellow  men — or  am  driven  so  to  do — because  I  need  their 
cooperation  in  the  satisfaction  of  my  desires.  A  society  in  which 

7  The  best  statement  of  the  view  here  combated  known  to  me  is  that  of  Levy- 
Bruhl:  "La  Morale  et  la  Science  des  Moeurs,"  and  Dewey's  monograph  on  "Logical 
Conditions  of  a  Scientific  Treatment  of  Morality." 

[  178  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

each  makes  use  of  the  labor  of  his  fellow  men,  in  which,  namely, 
division  of  labor  is  practiced,  will  produce  more,  and  will  be  further 
advanced  in  the  industrial  arts,  than  one  in  which  division  of  labor 
is  but  slightly  developed.  But  such  a  bond  of  social  and  economic 
organization  need  be  based  on  nothing  other  than  self-interest.  My 
fellow  men  will  be  useful  to  me,  if  I  in  turn  will  be  of  use  to  them. 
Exchange,  contract,  division  of  labor  are  here  the  primary  facts 
and  interests.  Now  we  must,  in  theory  at  any  rate,  contrast  with 
this  another  type  of  bond  which  may  unite  me  to  my  fellow  men. 
I  may  be  interested  in  my  fellow  men,  not  primarily  because  through 
exchange  we  can  supply  one  another's  wants,  but  because  I  dis- 
cover that  they  and  I  really  have  something  in  common.  I  delight 
in  sharing  with  him  some  mutual  interest.  He  and  I  are  linked 
together  through  membership  in  some  more  than  individual  life, 
in  a  true  community.  When  I  thus  discover  my  fellow  man  as  a 
member  of  a  community,  he  becomes  for  me  something  other  than 
a  stimulus.  My  interest  now  terminates  in  him  as  an  integral  member 
of  the  community.  I  will  not  use  him,  but  will  enjoy  him,  sympathize 
with  him,  and  love  him.  We  come  across  again  the  profound  differ- 
ence, so  often  lost  sight  of,  between  the  categories  of  desire  and  of 
love.  Desire  or  interest  is  pragmatic  and  utilitarian.  It  asks,  how 
can  I  use  my  world,  what  behavior  of  mine  is  most  advantageous 
by  way  of  response  to  such  and  such  stimuli?  Love  is  utterly  non- 
pragmatic.  It  is  "disinterested."  It  terminates  in  an  object  which  is 
itself  of  inherent  worth.  It  asks  not,  how  can  I  use  my  world,  but 
how  may  I  appropriate  all  the  wealth,  the  significant  structures 
which  my  world  contains,  and  how,  perchance,  may  I  contribute  to 
the  object  of  my  devotion  and  love?  Now  we  have,  I  take  it,  certain 
forms  of  community  life  which  exhibit  something  of  these  non- 
pragmatic  traits.  Most  elemental  is,  of  course,  the  family.  But,  a 
bare  mention  of  the  family  shows  how  complexly  interrelated  are, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  these  two  types  of  social  structure  and  two  atti- 
tudes which  they  exemplify.  The  family  is,  primitively,  a  biological 
and  economic  necessity.  It  is,  like  primitive  barter,  a  device  for 
supplying  the  elemental  needs  of  protection,  food,  etc.  And  this 
economic  aspect  persists  throughout.  But  a  time  undoubtedly 
arrives — and  it  must  have  arrived  early,  at  least  as  early  as  religion 

[  179  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

and  law — when  the  family  becomes  not  only  a  "society"  but  a  "com- 
munity," not  only  something  to  use,  but  something  to  possess  and 
to  participate  in.  And  then  again,  very  much  later,  with  the  rise 
of  individualism,  the  economic  and  contractual  side  of  marriage  and 
of  the  family  receives  attention,  in  ways  which  are  the  source  of 
problems  which  we  have  not  yet  learned  adequately  to  solve.8 

The  reason,  then,  why  we  take  an  interest  in  the  life  of  our  fellow 
men  is  twofold.  There  is  a  biological  and  utilitarian  interest,  and 
there  is  also  a  contemplative  and  non-pragmatic  interest.  We  desire 
their  aid  in  the  satisfaction  of  our  wants,  and  we  delight  in  the 
discovery  of  an  Other  with  whom  we  may  communicate.  That  there 
is  about  sympathy  something  which  is  not  wholly  resolvable  into 
the  mechanism  of  association,  it  is  the  merit  of  Shaftsbury,  Hume, 
and  Smith  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  have  shown.  But  the  unique- 
ness of  sympathy,  its  distinction  from  behavior,  which  is  socially 
useful  and  necessary,  was  called  in  question  by  the  evolutionary 
theory  and  the  work  of  Darwin  in  the  nineteenth  century.  For 
there  is  the  gregarious  instinct  which,  among  the  higher  animals 
and  man,  has  certainly  a  biological  utility.  It  possesses  survival 
value  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  It  is,  then,  natural  enough  to 
view  sympathy  merely  as  the  mental  accompaniment  and  reflex 
of  instinctive  gregarious  behavior  whose  significance  lies  in  its 
utility.  Sympathy  is  thus  the  symptom  and  the  outcome  of  the 
sociability,  the  living  together  of  men,  their  cooperation  and  division 
of  labor.  But  whatever  may  be  the  fact  about  the  evolutionary  and 
temporal  series  here  involved,  it  is  still  possible  and  necessary  to 
insist  upon  the  qualitative  ("phenomenological")  distinction  be- 
tween useful  social  behavior  and  genuine  sympathy.  The  former 
is  all  that  "nature"  cares  about.  As  long  as  a  group  acts  as  a  unit, 
coheres  together  with  solidarity,  nature  has  no  concern  with  the 
way  in  which  it  feels  in  the  conscious  experience  of  the  members  of 
the  group.  But  in  that  inner  life  a  new  dimension  of  values  makes  its 
appearance,  the  non-utilitarian  value  of  sharing  our  ideas  with  an- 

8  Although  the  contrast  between  Gesellschaft  and  Gemeinschaft  receives  special 
emphasis  at  the  hands  of  the  German  philosophers,  it  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
German  philosophies  of  society.  An  excellent  though  brief  resume  of  the  contrast  is 
given  by  Richard:  "La  Sociologie  Generate,"  pp.  i64ff. 

r  180 1 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

other,  of  discovering  and  participating  in  the  life  of  other  minds.  And, 
once  we  apprehend  this  distinction,  we  are  entitled  to  say  that  such 
mutual  understanding  it  is  which  makes  social  life,  i.e.,  the  historical 
life  of  communities  possible,  rather  than  that  such  sympathy 
is,  as  Darwin  and  Spencer  supposed,  the  mere  reflex  of  an  already 
existing  social  order.  I  may  quote  a  passage  from  Stout  by  way  of 
emphasizing  and  confirming  the  psychological  uniqueness  of  sym- 
pathy and  its  non-pragmatic  nature.  "Society,"  he  says,  "supplies  the 
needs  of  the  individual  in  a  twofold  manner.  In  the  first  place,  each 
man  depends  upon  the  cooperation  of  others  for  the  satisfaction  of 
his  practical  needs,  for  the  maintenance  of  his  existence  and  of  his 
material  well-being.  Without  the  aid  of  others  he  cannot  mould  and 
adapt  his  material  environment  to  his  own  use.  Perhaps  the  child's 
interest  in  the  persons  who  surround  him,  and  his  desire  to  commu- 
nicate with  them,  are  at  the  outset  mainly  of  this  practical  char- 
acter. But  at  a  very  early  stage  in  the  development  of  the 
individual,  the  desire  for  sympathy  and  mutual  understanding 
becomes  itself  a  primary  end.  The  mental  life  of  man  in  society  is 
as  immediately  dependent  on  interchange  of  ideas  with  his  fellow 
men  as  it  is  on  the  use  of  his  senses.  The  first  strong  development 
of  pure  curiosity  arises  in  connection  with  social  relations.  It  con- 
sists in  the  felt  need  to  know  what  those  around  us  are  doing  or 
thinking.  The  greater  part  of  all  ordinary  conversation,  both  among 
the  civilized  and  the  uncivilized,  illustrates  this  primary  social  im- 
pulse. Even  the  interest  of  human  beings  in  nature,  apart  from  their 
immediate  practical  needs,  was  at  the  outset  an  interest  in  personi- 
fied natural  objects.  Another  aspect  of  this  desire  for  communion 
with  our  fellows,  and  of  aversion  for  that  mutilation  of  mental 
existence  which  social  isolation  involves,  is  found  in  what  may  be 
broadly  termed  the  tendency  to  imitation, — the  tendency  to  assimi- 
late ourselves  to  the  society  in  which  we  live,  so  that  we  may  under- 
stand and  sympathize  with  it,  and  it  may  understand  and  sympathize 
with  us."9  McDougall  likewise  distinguishes  between  active  and 

9  "Analytic  Psychology,"  vol.  2,  p.  100.  The  most  thoroughgoing  psychological 
analysis  of  sympathy  of  which  I  know,  entirely  bearing  out  what  I  have  spoken  of 
as  its  non-pragmatic  nature,  is  that  of  Scheler:  "Zur  Phanomenologie  und  Theorie  der 
Sympathiegefiihle  und  von  Liebe  und  Hass." 

[  181  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

passive  sympathy.  By  active  sympathy  is  meant  "that  tendency  to 
seek  to  share  our  emotions  and  feelings  with  others."  And  although 
this  "is  rooted  in  primitive  or  passive  sympathy  and  in  the  grega- 
rious instinct,"  it  is  set  forth  as  attaining  a  significance  decidedly 
different  from  any  which  instinctive  behavior  can  possess.  "The 
person  in  whom  this  tendency  is  strong  cannot  bear  to  suffer  his 
various  affective  experiences  in  isolation;  his  joys  are  no  joys,  his 
pains  are  doubly  painful,  so  long  as  they  are  not  shared  by  others; 
his  anger  or  his  moral  indignation,  his  vengeful  emotion,  his  pity,  his 
elation,  his  admiration,  if  they  are  confined  to  his  own  bosom, 
cannot  long  endure  without  giving  rise  to  a  painful  desire  for 
sympathy."10 

Consider,  once  again,  as  an  illustration  of  the  mind's  interest  in 
apprehending  and  in  participating  in  the  life  of  a  community,  our 
attitude  to  the  past  and  the  meaning  which  history  has  for  us.  The 
life  of  every  community  is  in  time;  the  past  is  carried  along  into 
the  present  through  custom,  tradition,  and  piety.  To  enter  fully  into 
the  life  of  any  historical  community  is  to  apprehend  the  past.  One 
discovers  in  the  past  a  genuine  Other  just  as  much  as  one  discovers 
in  the  minds  of  his  fellow  men  common  interests  and  sharable 
ideas.  One  may  sympathize  with  the  past  then,  just  as  one  does  with 
the  minds  which  live  in  the  present.  Now,  I  submit  that  this  interest 
in  the  life  of  the  past  and  in  the  study  of  history  is  significant,  that 
it  is  certainly  different  from  a  utilitarian  interest  in  the  past,  a 
desire  to  use  the  experiences  of  the  past  in  the  solution  of  present 
difficulties,  and  that  it  may  conceivably  outweigh  the  'scientific' 
and  pragmatic  value  of  history.  Mr.  Balfour  has  spoken  of  this  as 
the  'aesthetic'  value  which  history  possesses.  He  means,  I  take  it, 

10  "Social  Psychology,"  p.  200.  Cf .  also  the  following  quotation  from  Hocking : 
"The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,"  p.  222.  "The  laws  of  the  multiplication 
of  human  power  by  association  have  never  been  worked  out;  but  no  one  has  failed 
to  measure  in  frequent  experiences  what  incredible  enhancement  of  the  value  of  any 
experience  may  occur  in  a  single  touch  of  endorsement  from  without.  Worth  of  all 
sorts  begins  to  acquire  another  dimension  as  it  enters  a  career  of  actual  universality, 
such  as  the  merest  nod  of  assent  from  an  Other  may  convey.  Association  is  a  prin- 
ciple which  stands  outside  of  and  includes  whatever  may  become  content  of  indi- 
vidual experience;  there  is  some  possibility  that  in  association  a  sufficient  mastery  of 
evil  may  be  found." 

182 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

the  value  which  accrues  to  our  sympathetic  apprehension  of  more 
life  and  mind,  which  enlarges  our  world  and  in  which  we  may  take 
delight.  I  quote  the  paragraph.  "That  history  has  aesthetic  value 
is  evident.  An  age  which  is  both  scientific  and  utilitarian  occasion- 
ally pretends  to  see  in  it  no  more  than  the  raw  material  of  a  science 
called  sociology,  and  a  storehouse  of  precedents  from  which  states- 
men may  draw  maxims  for  the  guidance  of  mankind.  It  may  be  all 
this,  but  it  is  certainly  more.  What  has  in  the  main  caused  history 
to  be  written,  and  when  written  to  be  eagerly  read,  is  neither  its 
scientific  value  nor  its  practical  utility,  but  its  aesthetic  interest. 
Men  love  to  contemplate  the  performances  of  their  fellows,  and 
whatever  enables  them  to  do  so,  whether  we  belittle  it  as  gossip, 
or  exalt  it  as  history,  will  find  admirers  in  abundance."11  It  is  only 
when  seen  in  this  light,  as  a  domain  of  non-utilitarian  interests,  that 
justice  can  be  done  to  that  conception  of  history  which  is  associated 
with  the  names  of  Rickert  and  Windelband.  For  this  school  of 
writers,  history  is  always  a  matter  of  individual  happenings,  of 
unique  men,  deeds,  and  nations.  The  other  sciences,  physics,  psy- 
chology, sociology,  are  concerned  primarily  not  with  the  unique  and 
the  individual,  but  with  the  typical,  with  laws  and  universals,  func- 
tional relationships.  History  is  "idiographic" ;  these  other  sciences 
are  "nomothetic."  History  seeks  to  envisage  with  insight  and  sym- 
pathy the  individual.  Its  interest  terminates  in  the  individual,  the 
other  sciences  are  interested  in  individuals  only  as  instances  of  types 
and  laws.  I  mention  here  this  far-reaching  conception  of  history  not 
in  order  to  discuss  it  for  its  own  sake,  but  to  point  out  its  real  basis 
in  our  experience.  We  shall  presently  observe  the  important  prin- 
ciple that  it  is  only  non-pragmatic  interests  and  attitudes  which 
terminate  in  individuals  at  all.  To  insist,  then,  that  the  objects  of 
our  historical  interest  are  really  individuals  and  not  universal  laws 
or  types  is  at  the  same  time  to  emphasize  the  non-behavior  and 
non-pragmatic  character  of  the  mind's  interest  in  other  minds,  in 
the  past,  and  in  the  historical  life  of  communities.  Viewing  this  whole 
matter  by  and  large,  it  presents  us  with  an  impressive  clew  as  to 
what  the  life  and  the  interests  of  the  mind  really  are.  What  the 
brain  is,  at  least  what  it  is  for,  of  that  we  may  have  little  doubt. 

11  "Theism  and  Humanism,"  p.  91. 

[  183  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

We  observe  nature  building  up  in  the  animal  world  more  and  more 
complexly  inter-related  systems  of  tropisms  and  reflex  arcs.  The 
significance  of  these  structures,  built  up  by  nature  and  inherited 
by  the  individual,  lies  in  their  contribution  to  action  and  response, 
behavior  and  survival.  Then  what  we  are  accustomed  to  call  the 
life  of  mind  emerges  and  what  of  it?  Of  course,  it  knits  itself  into 
the  reflex  and  instinctive  structures  which  are  instruments  of 
behavior  and  activity.  But  shall  we  say  that  the  sole  function  of 
mind  is  instrumental  and  that  the  interests  of  behavior  and  of 
action  remain  forever  supreme?  Or,  shall  we  discover  in  the  life  of 
reason  a  new  interest,  best  illustrated  in  our  social  experience,  in 
our  apprehension  and  contemplation  of  the  mind  of  an  other  and 
of  the  life  of  a  community?  It  is  in  man's  social  experience  and  what 
grows  out  of  it,  that  the  mind's  participation  in  objective  significant 
structures  takes  on  its  most  concrete  form. 

As  a  final  illustration  of  the  difference  between  the  interests  of 
control  and  of  knowledge,  I  would  refer  to  religion  and  more  espe- 
cially to  the  emergence  of  the  distinction  between  magic  and  reli- 
gion. Something  of  this  has  already  come  to  our  notice  in  speaking 
of  the  roots  of  the  religious  tradition.  Here  we  may  be  reminded  of 
the  two  criteria  which  are  most  commonly  used  to  separate  the 
province  of  magic  from  that  of  religion.  Religion,  it  is  said,  is 
primarily  and  fundamentally  a  matter  of  men's  social  experience 
and  their  community  interests,  whereas  magic  is  practiced  by  the 
individual  for  his  own  profit,  or  for  the  individual  advantage  of 
another.  The  priest  is  ever  the  spokesman  for  some  community, 
family,  city,  state,  or  church.  The  medicine  man  carries  on  his  arts 
in  secret  and  as  a  solitary  individual.  The  second  difference  between 
magic  and  religion  is  found  in  the  different  motives  and  attitudes 
which  each  fosters  and  nourishes.  Magic  is  utilitarian  and  pragmatic. 
The  magician  is  the  earliest  man  deliberately  to  seek  control  over 
his  world,  to  reconstruct  his  environment  and  the  events  it  contains, 
so  as  to  satisfy  his  own  desires.  He  is  the  first  instrumentalist.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  moving  force  of  religion  is  different.  The  primary 
interest  of  religion,  as  something  distinct  from  magic,  is  in  partici- 
pating in,  or  in  contemplating  an  energy,  a  life,  a  spiritual  order 
which  is  not  to  be  controlled  but  rather  "enjoyed,"  lived,  partici- 

[  184  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

pated  in,  and  which  is — to  use  a  distinction  employed  by  Hocking — 
fertile  rather  than  useful.  Religion  belongs  to  the  category  of  mutual 
understanding  and  of  our  social  experience.  This,  of  course,  does 
not  mean  that  it  is  easy  to  say  what  belongs  to  magic  and  what  to 
religion  in  any  concrete  historical  instance  of  religion.  Some  ele- 
ments of  magic  have  no  doubt  persisted  in  every  historical  religion 
and  many  cults  which  seek  the  shelter  of  religion  are  really  but 
refined  and  subtle  forms  of  magic.  But,  in  principle  and  in  outline, 
the  cleavage  is  a  clear  one.  Where  religion  is  concerned,  in  the 
words  of  Marett  quoted  in  our  earlier  chapter,  "The  will  and  per- 
sonality in  the  worshippers  are  in  need  not  so  much  of  implements 
as  of  more  will  and  personality.  They  get  this  from  a  spiritual  kind 
of  religion;  which  in  one  way  or  another  always  suggests  a  society, 
a  communion,  as  at  once  the  means  and  the  end  of  vital  better- 
ment." These  two  criteria  of  the  distinction  between  religion  and 
magic,  taken  together,  but  emphasize  once  again  the  insight  that 
the  province  of  man's  social  experience  simply  cannot  be  subsumed 
under  the  concepts  of  behaviorism  and  instrumentalism. 

We  have  been  surveying  in  this  chapter,  in  a  cursory  fashion,  to 
be  sure,  certain  provinces  of  our  life  and  our  interests  for  the  pur- 
pose of  bringing  into  clear  relief  how  much  more  our  experience 
and  our  world  contain  than  that  which  may  readily  be  interpreted 
in  terms  of  behavior  and  control.  Tragedy,  the  world  of  the  past, 
indeed  the  entire  time  aspect  of  experience,  our  social  experience, 
the  apprehensions  of  other  minds,  participation  in  the  life  of  a 
community,  the  world  of  history  and  the  interests  of  religion  are 
all  non-pragmatic.  Not  behavior  and  control,  but  knowledge  and 
possession  are,  in  all  these  regions,  the  outstanding  interests  and 
attitudes.  These  show  us  what  the  life  of  the  mind  in  truth  is.  Here 
is  the  life  of  reason.  Idealism  has  been  the  theoretical  spokesman 
and  the  interpreter  of  these  interests,  and  religion,  for  the  masses 
of  men,  has  sheltered  something  of  the  enduring  worth  of  this  life 
of  the  mind. 

But  we  have  spoken  as  if  thought  and  action,  knowledge  and 
behavior,  the  non-pragmatic  interests  of  the  mind,  and  the  utili- 
tarian interest  in  control  were  wholly  antithetic  to  each  other.  Yet 
we  know  that  such  cannot  quite  be  the  case.  The  problem  is  really 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

that  of  the  relation  between  mind  and  body,  knowledge  and  be- 
havior. To  be  a  mind  is  to  possess  a  knowledge  of  reality.  These 
various  concrete  interests  which  we  have  been  commenting  upon 
are  but  concrete  examples  of  what  the  mind's  knowledge  of  reality 
means.  It  is  in  these  several  interests  that  the  mind  does  claim  to  be, 
not  an  instrument  of  behavior,  but  a  possessor  of  the  real,  a  par- 
ticipant in  significant  structures.  What  in  the  last  chapter  we  spoke 
of  as  the  Platonic  insight  of  idealism,  takes  on  concreteness  in 
these  various  interests,  above  all  in  man's  social  experience  and  in 
his  religion.  The  thesis  which  seems  to  me  to  hold  out  most  hope 
of  doing  justice  both  to  behavior  and  control,  and  to  the  life  of 
knowledge  and  possession  is  this.  Every  behavior  interest  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  cognitive  fringe.  The  awareness  of  some  total  situation 
is  a  matrix  within  which,  at  a  focal  point,  the  response  of  the  or- 
ganism to  some  particular  stimulus  occurs.  It  is  this  cognitive  appre- 
hension, this  fringe,  and  not  the  behavior,  the  response  to  the 
stimulus,  which  is  the  source  of  all  the  meaning  which  attaches  to 
an  object  attended  and  responded  to.  Let  us  now  expand  and  illus- 
trate this  principle.  I  sit  down  at  my  desk  to  write.  I  see  my  pen, 
take  it  up,  and  commence  to  use  it.  At  the  moment  it  is  my  pen  to 
which  I  adjust  my  behavior  and  which  exists  at  or  near  the  focus 
of  my  consciousness.  But,  while  my  hand  is  attending  to  my  pen, 
both  hand  and  pen  fall  within  my  field  of  vision  which  includes, 
too,  very  much  else  besides,  my  desk,  books,  my  room,  etc.  Now 
the  point  of  this  very  simple  illustration  is  that  a  very  much  larger 
area  comes  within  my  conscious  grasp  than  the  specific  objects  to 
which  my  hand,  or  even  my  body  as  a  whole  is  responding.  My 
consciousness  overlaps  both  my  body  and  the  environment  which 
acts  as  a  stimulus  to  the  adaptive  responses  of  the  organism.  The 
stimulus  is  embedded  within  a  more  inclusive  and  more  total  object. 
If  one  chooses  to  say,  then,  that  I  am  "responding"  to  and  "behav- 
ing" towards  my  entire,  inclusive  object,  and  not  merely  to  the 
specific,  focal  stimuli,  well  and  good.  But  let  it  then  be  understood 
that  the  manner  of  my  response  to  my  residual  environment,  my 
fringe,  is  not  the  same  as  the  manner  of  my  response  to  the  stimulus. 
I  literally  behave  towards,  do  something  with  my  pen;  I  am  aware 
of  a  total  situation,  an  inclusive  purpose,  which  makes  it  necessary 

[  186  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

and  meaningful  that  I  should  take  up  my  pen.  The  stimulus  re- 
sponded to  is  a  focal  center  within  a  larger  area,  which  is  appre- 
hended and  contemplated.  How  is  this  encircling  fringe  apprehended 
and  what  part  does  it  play  in  our  experience  and  our  activity?  For 
answer,  we  may  turn  to  the  chapters  in  Stout's  "Analytic  Psy- 
chology" entitled  "The  Apprehension  of  Form,"  and  "Implicit 
Apprehension."  To  James,  of  course,  belongs  the  credit  of  setting 
forth  how  pervasive  and  fundamental  in  the  entire  stream  of  con- 
sciousness is  the  focus- fringe  situation.  The  analysis  which  Stout 
gives  contains  an  abundance  of  suggestions  as  to  the  philosophical 
implications  of  this  focus-fringe  situation.  We  are  concerned  here 
with  the  relation  between  the  apprehension  of  a  whole,  a  total  and 
inclusive  situation,  and  our  attention  (response)  to  a  specific  con- 
stituent (stimulus)  within  that  whole.  The  relation,  then,  of  the 
awareness  of  whole  and  parts  interests  us.  Now  the  first  thing  to 
observe  is  that,  although  the  form  of  a  whole  cannot  be  apprehended 
without  any  awareness  of  the  parts,  yet  "a  whole  with  its  character- 
istic unity  may  be  apprehended  without  definitely  distinguishing  its 
several  constituents  from  each  other.  It  is  certainly  possible  to  think 
of  a  whole  in  its  unity  and  distinctness  without  discerning  all  or  even 
any  of  its  component  details."12  As,  perhaps,  the  most  striking  and 
familiar  illustration  of  this  principle,  Stout  discusses  the  manner 
in  which  we  apprehend  the  meaning  of  words.  Such  recognition  of 
meaning  occurs  through  an  "imageless  apprehension"  of  a  distinct 
and  characteristic  totality.  I  am  aware  of  the  complexities  and 
difficulties  which  attach  to  the  problem  of  imageless  thought. 
Nevertheless,  Stout's  description  and  analysis  of  the  matter  seems 
to  me  not  to  go  beyond  the  verifiable  features  of  the  situation.  The 
testimony  is  indeed  unequivocal  that  "the  flow  of  words  is  for  the 
most  part  unattended  by  a  parallel  flow  of  mental  imagery."  We 
probably  go  too  far,  however,  if  we  speak  of  all  specific  images  as 
quite  unnecessary  and  irrelevant.  The  apprehension  of  the  whole, 
which  is  analogous  to  a  surrounding  fringe,  has  somewhere  a  focal 
point.  It  is  to  this  focal  center  that  the  response  and  activity  of 
accommodation,  necessary  for  attention,  are  directed.  The  printed 
word  is  seen,  is  attended  to;  the  activity  of  attending  to  it  is  the 

12  "Analytic  Psychology,"  vol.  i,  pp.  76,  78. 

[  187  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

bearer  and  the  vehicle  of  the  mind's  apprehension  of  meaning.  The 
specific  stimulus  probably  does  give  rise  to  an  image,  but  both 
stimulus  and  image  are  but  partial,  surrounded  by  the  fringe  of 
meaning  which  is  apprehended  as  a  whole. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  adduce  further  instances  of  situations  in 
which  the  presence  of  meaning  arises  from  the  implicit  apprehen- 
sion of  a  whole  rather  than  from  any  specific  response  of  the 
organism  to  a  stimulus.  Meaning  is  a  matter  not  primarily  of  be- 
havior, but  of  knowledge.  I  quote  again  from  Stout.  "When  I  look 
at  a  house,  what  is  actually  seen,  together  with  what  is  mentally 
pictured,  constitutes  only  a  small  part  of  the  object  as  it  is  perceived. 
The  actual  sensations  and  the  attendant  mental  imagery  do  not 
by  their  limitation  limit  the  objective  reference.  This  is  possible 
only  because  an  imageless  representation  of  the  whole  is  conjoined 
with  the  sensible  appearance  as  its  'psychic  fringe.'  At  the  most, 
only  the  last  two  or  three  notes  of  a  melody  are  perceived  at  its 
close,  and  yet  the  musically  gifted  are  aware  of  it  as  a  whole.  Simi- 
larly, I  may  be  keenly  aware  of  the  unity  of  a  sonnet  in  respect  of 
metrical  form  while  I  am  reading  the  last  lines,  although  the  words 
of  the  preceding  lines  are  no  longer  present  to  my  mind.  All  per- 
ception of  a  series  of  changes  as  forming  a  whole,  involves  imageless 
apprehension.  ...  In  every  train  of  thought,  strictly  so  called,  a 
single,  central  topic — a  permanent  object — is  throughout  kept  in 
view.  The  orderly  sequence  of  special  apprehensions  is  due  to  the 
controlling  influence  of  the  persistent  and  central  thought.  .  .  . 
We  have  cognisance  of  this  topic  as  a  whole  during  the  entire 
process;  but  its  special  parts  or  aspects  are  apprehended  only  piece- 
meal."13 Essentially  the  same  statement  applies  to  the  life  of  pur- 
pose and  conation.  Every  partial  present  purpose  is  surrounded  by  a 
more  inclusive  purpose.  The  desire  for  food  is  really  the  desire  for 
health  and  strength  and  life,  and  from  this  larger  fringe  of  interests 
there  streams  in  upon  the  momentary  partial  interest  its  meaning 
and  its  justification.  Again  in  our  entire  social  life:  the  economic 
activities  of  men  are  embedded  within  a  more  comprehensive  and 
concrete  network  of  relations,  legal,  social  and  moral,  though  they 
may  for  the  most  part  remain  quite  implicit,  and  we  have  often  been 

13  Stout:  "Analytic  Psychology,"  vol.  i,  pp.  93  ff. 

[   188  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

led  to  forget  the  fringe  of  these  other  motives  and  interests.  What 
we  have  sought  to  make  clear  by  these  various  examples  then, 
is  this.  Something  akin  to  the  focus-fringe  relationship  in  psychology, 
as  set  forth  by  James  and  others,  also  exists  wherever  there  is  any 
apprehension  of  meaning  and  an  overt  response  to  a  specific  stim- 
ulus. The  organism's  behavior  in  the  presence  of  the  stimulus  does 
not  comprise  the  entire  situation  as  it  really  exists.  A  consciousness 
of  meaning,  an  awareness  of  some  total  object  surrounds  every 
specific  instance  of  behavior  except,  it  may  be,  a  pure  tropism 
or  instinct  which  is  entirely  a  matter  of  biology.  Behavior  and  mean- 
ing are  never  commensurate.  They  are  related  as  stimulus  and  object. 
The  categories  of  behaviorism  and  instrumentalism  become  less 
and  less  adequate  as  one  moves  from  biology  to  psychology,  from 
brain  structures  and  reflex  arcs  to  the  life  of  mind  and  of  conscious- 
ness. Throughout  our  experience  these  two,  meaning  and  behavior, 
are  in  some  fashion  wedded  together.  We  may  say  (with  Stout)  that 
"though  mental  process  as  it  advances  in  complexity  becomes  less 
and  less  capable  of  adequate  expression  in  terms  of  motor  process, 
yet  some  motor  process  is  always  involved  in  it."14  Consciousness 
is  neither  a  picture  gallery  in  flux,  a  succession  of  images,  nor  is  it 
a  series  of  behavior  processes.  It  lives  through  its  possession 
of  wholes,  through  its  apprehension  of  meanings,  its  participation 
in  significant  structures,  its  understanding  of  an  Other.  Conation 
itself  is  to  be  interpreted  not  merely  as  the  attempt  of  an  organism 
whose  equilibrium  is  upset  through  the  reception  of  a  stimulus, 
to  regain  its  equilibrium,  not  merely  in  terms  of  the  satisfaction 
of  a  "vital  series"  (cf.  Avenarius  and  all  voluntarism)  but  also  as 
a  voyage  of  discovery,  an  exploration  of  self  and  of  the  world, 
an  attainment  of  knowledge  and  a  possession  of  reality.  See,  for  a 
moment,  what  an  interpretation  of  conation  such  as  this  would 
imply.  Ask  the  question  as  to  when,  and  under  what  circumstances 
the  mind  comes  into  contact  with  an  environment,  with  reality. 
Hume  answers,  only  at  the  very  outset  of  its  career,  only  in  the 
process  whereby  the  mind  is  furnished  with  "impressions."  Impres- 
sions are  the  bearers  of  valid  knowledge;  they  are  a  pledge  of  the 
continuity  and  contact  of  mind  and  world.  But  they  constitute, 

14  "Analytic  Psychology,"  vol.  2,  p.  103. 

[  189  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

in  addition,  a  stimulus  to  the  elaboration  of  "ideas."  And  the  further 
you  go  on  the  journey  from  "impressions"  to  "ideas,"  the  further  do 
you  become  separated  from  reality.  Ideas  are  not  cognitive  at  all. 
So  much  of  the  fabric  of  "custom  and  imagination"  have  entered 
into  the  substance  of  ideas,  that  they  are  separated  by  a  long  interval 
from  impressions,  and  have  ceased  to  participate  in  an  objective 
order.  They  belong  only  to  the  mind  as  a  witness  to  the  manner 
in  which  the  mind  responds  to  the  stimuli  of  impressions.  One  sees 
the  analogy  between  Hume's  thought  on  these  matters  and  the  way 
in  which  the  conation,  the  conscious  striving  of  any  organism,  is 
often  pictured.  It  is  assumed  that  the  environment,  through  a  stim- 
ulus which  presents  a  problem  to  the  organism,  upsets  its  equilib- 
rium and  sets  in  motion  a  conation,  a  vital  series,  a  striving  which 
is  pictured  essentially  as  a  process  occurring  within  the  organism. 
Mental  striving  tends  to  realize  itself,  to  recover  the  equilibrium 
of  the  vital  series.  Now,  in  this  way  of  viewing  the  matter  we  are, 
I  think,  in  danger  of  falling  into  the  same  error  in  which  Hume  and 
all  subjectivism  fall.  We  are  likely  to  forget  that  the  mind  is  in  con- 
tact with  reality  throughout,  and  not  only  at  the  initial  moment  of 
a  conation  series  when  a  stimulus  upsets  the  organism's  equilibrium. 
The  journey  from  stimulus  to  a  final  response  is  to  be  described  not 
merely  as  something  occurring  entirely  within  the  mind,  or  within 
the  organism.  Both  processes  constitute  indeed  a  voyage  of  explora- 
tion and  discovery.  There  is  no  conation  without  some  continuous 
objective  reference,  some  knowledge,  some  participation  in  reality, 
however  unquiet  it  may  be.  There  is  a  persistent  confusion  in  psy- 
chology and  in  much  of  our  thinking  about  the  nature  of  conscious- 
ness, which  is  here  to  be  mentioned.  There  lurk  many  ambiguities 
in  the  concept  of  mental  activity,  ambiguities  which  occasioned  the 
well-known  remark  of  Bradley  that  the  very  concept  of  mental 
activity  was  a  scandal  in  metaphysics.  The  chief  source  of  these 
perplexities  lies  in  our  failure  to  distinguish  causal  efficacy  and  the 
apprehension  of  meaning.  In  a  sustained  review  of  the  work  of  Stout 
to  which  we  have  been  referring,  Royce  has  a  telling  criticism  of  just 
this  confusion  which  Stout  himself  has  not  always  escaped.  We  tend 
to  confuse  "meaning  with  abstract  efficacy,  good  sense  with  causal 
power,  rationality  with  capacity  to  accomplish  the  causal  production 

[  190  ] 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

of  deeds,  and  sustained  significance  with  self-sustaining  process."15 
The  radical  difficulty  with  all  extreme  voluntarism  and  behavior- 
ism lies  just  here.  At  bottom  we  suffer  from  a  failure  to  free  ourselves 
sufficiently  from  the  dominance  of  biology  and  its  categories. 

One  final  matter  as  to  the  relation  between  thought  and  action 
remains  to  be  mentioned.  In  the  preceding  chapter  we  made  use 
of  a  hypothesis  concerning  the  relation  between  stimulus  and  object 
so  far  as  the  status  of  values  is  involved.  We  there  gave  a  ready 
assent  to  an  intimate  correlation  between  feeling  or  interest,  and 
value,  without  regarding  value  merely  as  a  projection  or  a  creation 
of  interest.  In  making  use  here  of  the  focus-fringe  situation  and  all 
that  it  implies,  we  are  ready  to  say  the  same  thing  concerning  the 
relation  of  behavior  and  meaning,  body  and  mind.  The  brain  does 
not  generate  the  mind,  the  response  of  the  organism  to  the  stimulus 
is  not  identical  with  consciousness  nor  with  the  apprehension  of 
meanings.  And  yet  these  two  are  intimately  correlated  with  one 
another.  How?  I  answer,  the  necessities  of  behavior  and  the  brain 
processes  which  control  that  behavior  select  but  do  not  generate 
the  meanings  which  come  before  my  mind.  What  I  am  now  doing 
is  the  vehicle  through  which  some  whole,  some  significant  structure 
becomes  known  to  me.  Just  as  the  muscular  accommodation  of  sense 
organs  is  unquestionably  not  identical  with  the  meaning  of  that 
which  is  perceived,  but  only  the  channel  through  which  an  object 
is  presented  to  my  consciousness,  so  behavior  as  a  whole  deter- 
mines my  ideas  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  vehicle  and  not  the 
creator  of  those  meanings.  In  speaking  of  what  he  rightly  calls  "the 
most  important  part  of  consciousness,"  the  essential  thought  activity, 
the  apprehension  of  meanings  and  the  "reference  of  consciousness 
to  an  object,"  McDougall  speaks  thus  of  the  sensory  and  motor 
elements  of  consciousness  here  involved:  "All  the  sensory  feelings 
are  but  the  medium  which  brings  this  thought-activity  into  play 
and  determines  its  direction  from  moment  to  moment;  they  are 
but  solicitations  to  thought  or  to  thinking."16  Just  so,  the  entire 
motor  and  behavior  processes  of  the  body  with  which  the  brain  has 

15  "Mind,"  1897,  P.  393- 
ie  "Psychology,"  p.  55. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

to  do,  is  the  medium,  the  solicitation,  the  selection  of  the  meanings 
which  come  before  the  mind  at  any  moment. 

For,  we  are  never  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  brain  is  an 
instrument  not  of  knowledge,  but  of  muscular  response  and  of 
behavior.  It  is  but  the  connecting  link  between  sense  organs  and 
muscles.  Why  there  should  be  any  consciousness  at  all  over  and 
above  the  brain  and  the  behavior  of  the  body  may  and  does  remain 
a  mystery,  at  least  in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  ultimate  fact  about  the 
nature  of  things.  The  two  facts  of  which  we  may  be  wholly  certain 
respecting  this  mystery  are  first,  that  knowledge,  like  every  ultimate 
value,  is  autonomous:  it  reveals  an  objective  significant  structure, 
and  to  be  a  mind  is  precisely  equivalent  to  possessing  a  knowledge 
of  reality;  and  secondly,  what,  of  all  the  mind's  possessions,  come 
at  any  moment  into  the  explicit  light  of  consciousness  depends,  in 
some  degree  at  least,  upon  what  the  brain,  i.e.,  the  body  is  doing. 
The  brain  has  to  do  only  with  some  stimulus;  a  stimulus  is  a  gath- 
ering place,  a  focal  center  for  a  fringe  of  meanings,  whose  organized 
totality  is  the  true  object  of  the  mind  and,  in  the  last  analysis,  is 
reality  itself. 

We  have  throughout  been  discussing  the  contrast  and  the  relation 
between  man's  interest  in  exploiting  and  controlling  his  world,  and 
his  interest  in  apprehending  the  wealth  of  meaning  which  reality 
offers  him.  There  is  one  final  thesis,  in  respect  to  these  two  attitudes, 
which  I  would  here  set  forth.  It  is  the  thesis  that  only  non-prag- 
matic attitudes  and  interests  disclose  individuals.  Let  anyone  view 
his  world  solely  in  the  light  of  the  categories  of  behavior  and  con- 
trol, then  everything  specific  and  individual  is  envisaged  as  one 
instance  of  a  type,  a  law.  An  illustration  will  bring  the  matter  before 
us  at  once.  I  find  myself  in  a  strange  city,  and  in  order  to  reach  my 
destination  I  make  inquiries  of  a  uniformed  individual  whom  I  see 
standing  on  the  street  corner.  It  is  an  individual  policeman  whom 
I  address,  but  I  have  an  eye  to  nothing  save  his  uniform  which  I  take 
to  be  the  sign  of  a  class  of  men  likely  to  have  authoritative  informa- 
tion about  that  which  I  need  to  know.  I  use  my  policeman  in  order 
effectively  to  adapt  my  behavior  to  my  environment,  in  order  to 
solve  a  practical  problem.  He  is  to  me  no  individual  object;  he,  or 
rather  his  uniform,  is  but  a  stimulus.  On  the  other  hand,  in  order 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

that  I  may  discover  something  individual  about  the  policeman  I 
must  cease  to  regard  him  simply  as  an  instrument.  My  interest  and 
attention  must  terminate  in  him  as  an  end,  and  not  pass  through 
him  as  a  means.  I  must  seek  to  understand  him,  share  his  ideas 
and  feelings,  sympathize  with  him.17 

Now,  the  insight  that  only  those  interests  and  attitudes  which  are 
non-instrumental,  i.e.,  love,  sympathy,  loyalty,  appreciation,  knowl- 
edge, terminate  in  individuals  is  all  the  more  worth  emphasizing, 
because  so  often  is  it  supposed  that  the  merit  of  pragmatism  lies  in 
its  capacity  to  deal  with  what  is  specific  and  individual.  The  instru- 
mentalists from  Bacon  to  Dewey  have  spoken  slightingly  of  tradi- 
tional knowledge  precisely  because  it  seems  to  them  something 
wholesale  and  absolute  rather  than  a  description  of  specific  sequences 
such  as  will  be  useful  in  guiding  our  conduct.  It  is  in  order  that  the 
concrete,  the  specific,  the  individual,  may  be  liberated  that  all 
Platonism  is  mistrusted  and  abhorred  and  replaced  by  instrument- 
alism.  In  Dewey's  words,  "democracy  is  an  absurdity  where  faith 
in  the  individual  as  individual  is  impossible;  and  this  faith  is  impos- 
sible when  intelligence  is  regarded  as  a  cosmic  power,  not  an 
adjustment  and  application  of  individual  tendencies."18  But,  the 
historical  sources  of  nineteenth  century  pragmatism  suggest  some- 
thing different.  What  I  mean  is  that  the  utilitarianism  of  Mill,  the 
positivism  of  Comte  and  the  pragmatism  of  our  own  day  in  this 
country  are  all  offshoots  of  the  same  intellectual  tradition.  These 
are  the  inheritors  of  the  Enlightenment  ideals  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Those  ideals  become,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  more  flexi- 
ble, less  mechanical .  and  dogmatic,  profoundly  influenced  by  the 
newer  social,  historical,  and  biological  interests,  but  withal  the 
same.19  Now  it  is  a  commonplace  but  nevertheless  a  truth  that  the 
rationalism  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a  philosophy  and  an 
attitude  which  did  not  succeed  in  caring  very  much  for,  or  even  in 

17  This  illustration  was  suggested  to  me  by  the  little  book  of  Gudmundur  Finn- 
bogason :  "L'Intelligence  Sympathique,"  pp.  5  ff.  This  book  is  an  admirable  psycho- 
logical study  of  the  contrast  between  the  two  interests  we  are  discussing. 

18  "The  Influence  of  Darwin  upon  Philosophy,"  etc.,  p.  59. 

19  Cf.  the  following  from  Benn :  "English  Rationalism  in  the  Nineteenth  Century," 
vol.  i,  p.  295.  "The  Utilitarian  School  was  the  chief  underground  channel  by  which 
the  rationalism  of  the  eighteenth  flowed  into  the  nineteenth  century." 

[  193 1 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

discovering  the  individual.  The  eighteenth  century  was,  indeed, 
individualistic  and  atomistic.  But,  as  Simmel  has  pointed  out,  with 
characteristic  cogency  and  profundity,  the  individual  as  he  appeared 
to  the  mind  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  utterly  isolated  from 
everything  historical,  positive,  and  contingent.  It  is  only  through 
such  a  release  of  the  individual  from  everything  "individual"  that 
the  universal  humanity,  the  reason,  within  each  person  comes  to  be 
the  all-important  thing.  All  individuals  are  equal  just  because  no 
individual  is  unique,  is  really  an  individual.20  This  is,  of  course,  why 
the  eighteenth  century  did  not  possess,  with  a  few  notable  excep- 
tions, what  the  following  century  called  the  historical  spirit.  Its  ideal 
of  knowledge  was,  rather,  that  of  the  physical  and  the  mechanical 
sciences.  The  Laplacean  formula  exemplifies  its  hope  and  its  typical 
habits  of  thought.  This  surely  need  be  urged  no  further.  But  what 
does  not  always  receive  its  due  notice  is  the  relation  between  all 
of  this  and  that  other  characteristic  temper  of  the  eighteenth  century 
mind,  its  optimism,  its  belief  in  the  perfectibility  of  the  race,  in  uni- 
versal progress,  in  the  unlimited  scope  of  man's  control  over  his 
world,  in  short,  in  its  utilitarianism.  The  relation  is  here  close  and 
deep-lying.  As  Windelband  has  put  it,  "the  knowledge  of  universal 
laws  has  everywhere  the  practical  value  of  making  it  possible  for 
man  to  control  his  world,  and  deliberately  to  interfere  in  the  processes 
of  things."21  And  the  converse  of  this  statement  is  also  true.  If  you 
want  above  all  to  control  your  world,  to  exploit  it,  then  your 
interest  will  terminate,  not  in  individuals,  but  universals,  laws,  and 
types.  And  this  is  as  true  of  contemporary  instrumentalism  as  of  an 
order  utilitarianism.  But  this  interest  which  we  have  in  the  intel- 
ligent control  of  our  world  and  of  the  fortunes  of  our  life,  powerful 
and  significant  as  it  is,  is  subsidiary  to  the  enduring  interests  of 
human  life.  If  the  very  structure  of  our  civilization  threatens  to  give 
to  these  deep-seated  and  passionate  ideals  of  the  life  of  reason 

20  Simmel:  "Kant,"  pp.  172  ff.  Cf.  especially  the  following  sentence:  "Diese  En- 
tleerung  des  blossen  Ich  von  allem  individuellen  und  tatsachlich  gegebnen  Inhalt  ist 
die  geeignete  Grundlage  fur  die  Gleichheit  aller  Ichs,  denn  nur  durch  sie  lasst  sich  der 
'Allgemeine  Mensch'   herstellen;   jede  bestimmte  Qualitat  wiirde  unvermeidlich   die 
Allgemeinheit  aufheben,"  p.  173. 

21  "Geschichte  und  Naturwissenschaft,"  p.  19. 

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KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEHAVIOR,  MIND  AND  BODY 

little  opportunity  to  come  to  full  fruition,  the  lesson  is  that  our 
world  must  be  reconstructed.  So  far  is  the  teaching  and  the  spirit 
of  instrumentalism  sound.  We  are  not  content  with  our  world  as  we 
find  it.  We  wish  to  control  and  to  reconstruct  many  regions  of  our 
social,  economic,  and  national  life.  But  we  wish  to  do  this  in  order 
to  set  free  the  life  of  mind  and  of  reason,  the  more  complete  partici- 
pation of  our  ideas  and  our  interests  in  objective,  significant  struc- 
tures, a  deeper  enjoyment  of  the  life  of  communities — of  the  Great 
Community  that  is  to  be.  It  is  to  something  essentially  individual 
that  this  deeper  interest  and  attitude  of  the  mind  goes  out.  Our  next 
chapter  will  concern  itself  with  some  of  the  problems  about  individ- 
uals, about  self,  and  about  selves. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

f  •  fHE  concept  of  an  objective,  significant  structure  has 
met  us  more  than  once  in  the  course  of  our  discussion. 
It  is  in  affirming  the  possibility  of  the  mind's  participa- 
tion in  and  knowledge  of  such  structures  that  we  have 
A  thought  the  genius  of  idealism  to  lie.  We  have  seen  how 
the  religious  tradition  takes  its  rise  in  some  such  attitude  of  posses- 
sion, some  experience  and  feeling  of  continuity  between  man  and  his 
world,  rather  than  in  a  sheer  process  of  animistic  projection  of  ideas 
and  of  personality  into  nature.  We  have  studied  the  way  in  which 
the  participation  of  man  in  objective  significant  structures  consti- 
tutes the  essence  of  Platonism  and  of  Christianity.  We  have  observed 
the  impact  of  certain  forces  within  modern  life  upon  this  conception, 
an  impact  which,  in  many  reaches  of  our  experience,  has  resulted 
in  an  isolation  of  ideas,  a  dissolution  of  the  mind's  integrity  and  its 
possession  of  reality.  We  then  turned  to  some  of  these  questions  for 
their  own  sake  and,  if  our  report  of  the  facts  is  at  all  adequate  and 
secure,  we  are  justified  once  more  in  making  use,  both  for  our  think- 
ing and  our  practice,  of  the  concept  of  significant  objective  struc- 
tures in  which  the  mind  of  man  may  and  does  participate.  But  this 
concept,  as  it  has  thus  far  come  to  light,  is  abstract,  and  we  have 
purposely  kept  it  abstract  in  order  that  its  wide  universality  might 
be  the  more  apparent.  All  of  the  basic  problems  of  ethics  and  of 
knowledge  and  of  social  organization  touch  somewhere  upon  the 
Platonic  concept  of  participation  in  an  "Idea,"  in  a  structure  which 
is  at  once  meaningful  and  also  real.  We  have  postponed  till  now  the 
question,  as  to  what  extent,  if  any,  we  are  justified  in  filling  out  the 
concept  of  objective,  significant  structure  with  a  meaning  more  con- 
crete, how  far  we  may  draw  upon  the  deeper  reaches  of  our  experi- 
ence for  suggestions  and  hypotheses  as  to  what  some,  at  least,  of  the 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

meaningful  objective  structures  in  which  we  participate,  in  truth  are. 
Two  such  provinces  of  our  experience  there  are  where  we  must  look 
and  probe  and  see  what  they  may  have  to  tell  us.  These  two  prov- 
inces are  not  unrelated;  they  are  our  social  experience,  our  recog- 
nition of  selves  and  of  communities,  and  religion.  This  chapter  will 
be  devoted  to  a  study  of  the  concept  of  self  and  other  selves. 

At  the  close  of  an  earlier  chapter  we  stated  two  theses  which  we 
called  the  Platonic  and  the  Kantian  principles.  Both  of  these  enter 
into  the  historical  tradition  of  constructive  idealism.  The  Platonic 
insight  stands  for  the  attitude  and  motive  of  possession,  of  partici- 
pation in  an  objective  order  of  real  and  meaningful  structures.  The 
Kantian  insight  is  the  spokesman  for  the  mind's  constant  interest 
in  making  over  its  world,  in  organizing  its  life  and  its  experience 
so  that  these  shall  embody  meanings  which  are  the  self's  own  pur- 
poses and  interests.  These  two  motives  carry  along  with  them  certain 
implications  for  the  way  in  which  the  self  shall  be  thought  of  and 
interpreted.  The  Platonic  principle,  when  applied  to  the  concept  of 
the  self,  results  in  a  definite  type  of  theory  which  will,  to  be  sure, 
have  various  forms  but  which,  as  a  type,  we  shall  speak  of  as  a  theory 
of  appropriation.  According  to  any  such  theory  of  appropriation, 
the  really  important  things  about  a  self  are  those  of  its  possessions 
which  it  has  appropriated  from  some  real  order  of  being.  The  center 
of  gravity,  so  to  speak,  of  any  self  is,  according  to  such  theories, 
yonder  in  those  significant  structures — whatever  they  may 
be — which  the  self  knows,  acknowledges,  acquiesces  in,  but  does  not 
create.  The  task  which  is  then  imposed  upon  selves,  the  vocation  of 
man,  viewed  in  this  light,  is  the  task  of  appropriating  that  which  is 
real,  independently  of  himself.  The  Kantian  principle  seems  quite 
the  contrary.  According  to  it,  the  most  important  things  about  a 
self  are  its  own  meanings,  its  own  purposes,  its  own  activities;  that 
only  which  it  can  assimilate  to  its  own  life  is  it  willing  or  able  to 
acknowledge  as  real.  Its  center  of  gravity  lies  quite  within  itself. 
It  is  self-active  and  not  recipient,  measuring  what  it  finds  in  terms 
of  what  it  is  seeking  and  doing,  and  not  measuring  itself  in  terms 
of  such  objective  structures  as  it  may  acknowledge  and  appropriate. 
We  shall  call  such  theories  as  build  upon  this  principle,  theories  of 
activity. 

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THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

It  is  with  some  of  the  questions  suggested  by  the  relation  between 
appropriation  from  without  and  activity  from  within  that  we  shall 
here  be  chiefly  concerned.  These  two  concepts,  activity  and  appro- 
priation, represent,  we  have  said,  but  two  large  types  of  theory; 
within  each  type  there  are  variations  and  subdivisions.  One  such 
important  line  of  cleavage  which  cuts  across  each  of  these  two  large 
types  may  be  mentioned  here.  The  concept  of  activity,  as  we  ob- 
served in  the  last  chapter,  may  connote  a  crass  and  literal  ability 
of  the  organism  to  initiate  changes,  to  make  differences  in  an  envi- 
ronment otherwise  neutral  or  mechanical.  Such  activity  is  causal 
efficacy.  Or,  the  concept  may  relate  to  such  matters  as  logical 
activity,  i.e.,  the  activity  of  the  mind  in  developing  a  mathematical 
proposition,  or  the  activity  which  is  required  to  understand  and  to 
sympathize  with  the  life  of  our  fellow  men.  Or  it  may  be  thought 
of  as  the  activity  not  of  our  empirical  self,  but  of  some  deeper, 
noumenal  self  which  is  responsible  for  the  meaningful  organization 
of  our  experience.  However  set  forth,  all  of  these  ways  of  under- 
standing the  concept  of  activity  have  to  do  with  the  apprehension 
and  the  development  of  meanings  rather  than  with  causal  efficacy. 
We  may  say  that  the  first  concept  of  activity,  just  mentioned,  falls 
in  with  the  various  theories  of  animism,  interactionism,  vitalism,  of 
what  James  called  "piecemeal  supernaturalism."  They  represent, 
perhaps,  the  more  common  and  familiar  ways  of  understanding 
what  the  activity  of  a  self  must  mean.  We  may  designate  the  two 
sorts  of  activity  here  in  question  as  psychological  or  causal,  and 
logical  or  significant.  While  it  is  not  easy  to  disentangle  the  two 
meanings  of  activity  in  many  individual  writers,  yet  no  one  familiar 
with  the  development  of  philosophy  since  Kant  will  question  the 
importance  of  trying,  in  principle,  to  be  clear  in  respect  to  the 
boundary  between  these  two  meanings. 

The  theories  of  appropriation  are  also  subject  to  a  line  of  cleavage 
with  reference  to  the  source  from  which  the  material  for  the  building 
and  the  moulding  of  selves  is  derived.  Such  a  source  may  be  thought 
of  as  nature,  as  experience  in  its  simpler  and  more  primitive 
ranges,  as  sensations,  or  impressions.  The  body  itself,  with  its  be- 
havior and  its  responses  to  its  environment,  may  be  viewed  as  the 
chief  storehouse  from  which  the  mind  or  the  self  derives  its  sub- 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

stance.  It  is  obvious  that  the  theory  of  Hume,  biological  and 
behaviorist  theories,  and  the  relational  theories  of  contemporary 
realism,  would  all  come  under  this  general  type.  These  theories  are 
naturalistic,  because  it  is  nature  from  which  the  self  derives  that 
which  it  is  and  has.  On  the  other  hand  the  source  from  which  selves 
appropriate  their  substance  may  be  thought  of  not  as  nature,  but  as 
"spirit,"  the  region  of  man's  social  experience,  the  world  of  history, 
or  some  Platonic  world  of  ideas,  of  norms,  of  significant  structures, 
which  possess  an  inherent  and  autonomous  worth.  There  are,  it  will 
be  evident,  various  possibilities  here,  as  indeed  in  each  of  these  four 
types  of  theory.  These  are,  to  be  sure,  but  types;  they  stand  for 
tendencies  rather  than  for  accomplished  and  specific  individual 
theories.  It  is  admitted  that  there  are  many  further  divisions  and 
many  intervening  positions.  Yet  the  central  and  the  ultimate  phil- 
osophical issues  about  the  self  are,  I  think,  involved  in  the  classi- 
fication here  suggested.  The  self  is  to  be  interpreted  from  within, 
in  terms  of  autonomous  self-activity,  either  causal  or  significant, 
or  it  is  to  be  thought  of  as  appropriating  objective  structures,  either 
those  of  nature  or  of  spirit.  Any  significant  philosophical  theory  of 
the  self  will  probably  fall  within  such  a  classification  as  that  here 
proposed,  and  I  mention  it  only  for  that  reason,  and  not  because 
each  of  these  four  possible  types  of  theory  will  be  here  analyzed  in 
turn.  We  have,  indeed,  already  had  some  things  to  say  about  some 
of  the  matters  which  are  involved  here.  Our  last  chapter  was  a 
discussion  of  the  two  types  of  activity  suggested  by  pragmatic 
control,  and  by  knowledge.  We  have  seen  reasons  for  rejecting  the 
view  that  the  only  activity  which  is  worth  considering  is  that  of 
the  intelligent  manipulation  of  the  environment  in  the  interests  of 
economical  and  efficient  behavior.  Our  environment  contains 
objects  to  be  understood  and  to  be  loved,  as  well  as  stimuli  to  be 
responded  to  pragmatically.  Again,  in  setting  forth  something  of 
the  relations  between  body  and  mind,  we  have  rejected  the  view  that 
the  life  of  the  mind  is  but  a  projection  of  the  behavior  of  the  body. 
It  is  just  this  insight  which  is  forced  upon  us  as  we  attempt  to  think 
through  the  difference  between  responding  to  a  stimulus  and 
understanding  an  object.  The  brain  is  concerned  with  the  former 
and  the  mind  with  the  latter  interest.  Any  further  inquiries  and 

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THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

reflections  as  to  the  relation  between  mind  and  brain  must  be  based 
upon  this  as  a  starting  point.  And  what  this  means  is  that,  however 
intimate  this  relation  be  thought  of,  the  mind  cannot  be  wholly,  nor 
even  essentially,  a  name  for  certain  structures  or  functions  appro- 
priated from  the  body,  or  from  nature.  By  nature  is  meant  the 
totality  of  physical  structures  and  energies,  including  the  bodies 
of  living  organisms,  the  environment  which  literally  impinges  upon 
the  body,  and  the  physical  commerce  and  behavior  which  tran- 
spires at  such  points  of  contact.  We  shall  see  in  this  chapter  further 
reasons  for  rejecting  nature,  thus  understood,  as  the  sole  source 
from  which  selves  appropriate  their  substance  and  their  life.  The 
larger  questions  of  activity  and  appropriation  are,  then,  before  us. 

We  may  begin  by  observing  certain  motives  which  have  led  men 
to  define  the  self  essentially  in  terms  of  activity.  There  is  first  the 
appeal  to  immediate,  felt  experience.  Each  person  has,  it  is  said, 
an  immediate  experience  of  his  own  self,  as  a  center  of  conscious 
activity.  Let  the  world  of  outer  nature,  of  other  selves,  of  external 
experience  be  dark  and  full  of  mystery,  even  let  it  be  doubted  and 
denied,  yet  my  experience  of  my  own  inner  self-activity  and  self- 
consciousness  still  remains  as  the  rock  of  certainty  and  assurance. 
The  immediately  experienced  self  need  be  no  separate  entity  felt 
in  isolation  from  all  else,  or  something  over  and  above  all  of  our 
specific  perceptions  and  experiences.  It  is  as  against  such  a  view 
that  the  fire  of  Hume's  famous  criticism  was  directed.  "When  I 
enter  most  intimately  into  what  I  call  myself,  I  always  stumble  on 
some  particular  perception  or  other,  of  heat  or  cold,  light  or  shade, 
love  or  hatred,  pain  or  pleasure.  I  never  can  catch  myself  at  any 
time  without  a  perception,  and  never  can  observe  anything  but  the 
perception."  But  it  may  still  be  the  case  that  the  self  is  directly 
experienced,  not  apart  from  specific  contents  of  consciousness,  but 
as  an  indissoluble  aspect  of  every  content  and  act  of  consciousness.1 
It  is  evident  that  any  such  emphasis  as  that  which  this  view  places 
upon  the  irreducible  immediacy  of  the  self  is  more  compatible  with 

1 A  most  comprehensive  study  of  modern  theories  of  the  self  in  psychology  is 
Oesterreich:  "Phanomenologie  des  Ich."  Cf.  also  the  various  writings  of  Professor 
Mary  W.  Calkins,  specially  "The  Self  in  Scientific  Psychology,"  American  Journal  of 
Psychology,  October,  1915. 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

the  activity  theories  than  with  the  appropriation  theories  of  the  self. 
For,  from  Berkeley  on,  the  most  transparent  and  certain  of  the 
immediately  experienced  qualities  of  the  self  has  been  thought  to 
be  just  its  activity.  Indeed,  one  may  here  appeal  to  an  older  theory 
than  that  of  Berkeley,  to  primitive  animism,  in  which  power  and 
causal  efficacy,  so  obvious  in  the  self,  were  read  into  all  the  processes 
of  nature.  And  the  influence  of  the  tradition  of  animism  probably 
tends  to  emphasize  the  literal,  quasi-physical,  and  causal  aspect  of 
the  self's  activity  and  thus  to  ally  the  theory  of  immediacy  with 
animism  and  inter actionism. 

A  second  motive  which  leads  to  a  definition  of  the  self  in  terms 
of  empirical  activity  from  within  is  as  follows.  Only  that  is  real 
which  makes  a  difference,  whose  action  produces  specific  changes 
in  a  world  which  would  be  different  without  just  that  activity.  This 
may  well  be  called,  one  will  agree,  the  pragmatic  motive.  Is  the  self 
real?  If  so,  the  self  must  be  the  source  of  deeds  and  activities  which 
are  inserted  into  an  environment  of  local  and  specific  places,  which 
originate  new  series  of  changes,  and  which  effect  alterations  in  an 
otherwise  selfless,  neutral,  or  mechanical  world.  A  self  which  does 
this,  if  it  be  more  than  a  mere  name,  must  be  a  center  of  energy 
acting  from  within,  not  any  depository  or  medium  for  what  is  merely 
appropriated  from  without.  There  is  likely  to  be  a  more  or  less 
explicit  assumption  here  as  to  the  contrast  between  the  inert 
mechanical  environment  of  the  self,  and  the  self's  own  spontaneous 
activity.  The  relation  between  the  environment  and  the  self,  or 
between  body  and  mind,  is  here  conceived  as  an  external  one,  such 
that  the  addition  of  a  self-active  mind  to  an  otherwise  material 
world  alters  that  world  only  in  spots,  only  in  those  places  where 
life  and  mind  can  insert  their  peculiar  activity  into  a  world  where, 
in  general,  life  and  mind  are  strangers.  Vitalism  and  interactionism 
are  content  to  leave  most  of  reality  in  the  full  grip  of  mechanism. 

Perhaps  the  most  persistent  motive  which  has  led  to  a  belief  in 
the  empirical  activity  of  the  self  is  the  conviction  that  only  thus 
can  the  claims  of  moral  freedom  and  responsibility  be  fully  met. 
Only  if  the  self  is  active  from  within,  the  genuine  initiator  of  deeds, 
can  responsibility  attach  to  the  self.  And  this  activity  must  be 
empirical,  specific,  the  source  of  definite  consequences  observable 

[    202    ] 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

in  time  and  space,  if  responsibility  also  is  to  be  definite  and  specific. 
The  appeal  here  is  to  the  world  of  common  moral  sense,  of  moral 
agents,  to  what  Bosanquet  calls  the  "world  of  claim  and  counter 
claim."  Indeed,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  entire  interpreta- 
tion of  the  self  in  terms  of  empirical,  psychological  activity  rests 
upon  an  appeal  both  to  immediate  experience  and  to  common  sense, 
to  categories  of  thought  and  of  life,  which  age-long  habit  and  famil- 
iarity have  fastened  upon  the  race. 

These  three  motives  have  one  common  implication  which  should 
be  mentioned  here.  An  individualism  and  radical  separateness  of 
selves  is  the  usual,  and  certainly  the  logical  accompaniment  of 
stressing  either  the  immediacy  of  felt  activity,  the  efficacy  of  mind 
and  of  will,  or  the  demands  of  freedom  and  responsibility.  My 
experience  of  my  own  conscious  activity  is,  in  its  immediacy,  its 
"warmth  and  intimacy,"  something  exclusively  mine  and  unshar- 
able.  Also,  the  separateness  of  selves  is  reinforced  by  the  biological 
bias  of  pragmatism  and  the  picture,  ever  present  to  our  eyes,  of 
separate  bodily  organisms,  each  acting  as  a  distinct  unity,  as  a 
compact  organization  of  interests  and  of  behavior. 

Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  questions  touching  the  meaning  and 
the  validity  of  these  motives.  The  many  pitfalls  which  surround  the 
notion  of  immediate  experience  should  at  least  put  us  on  our  guard 
when  we  are  confronted  by  the  thesis  that  every  content  of  our 
conscious  experience  has  a  self  aspect,  in  which  its  ownership  by 
a  self  is  an  integral  and  ultimate  characteristic. 

It  is  this  thesis  which  we  wish  to  examine  rather  than  the  view, 
opposed  by  Hume,  that  introspection  reveals  a  unique  and  distinct 
entity  known  as  the  self.  What  is  more  obvious  and  more  certain 
than  that  there  is  an  immediate  experience  of  one's  self  perceiving, 
attending,  hoping,  feeling,  and  acting  ?  We  shall  not  wish  to  quarrel 
with  this  statement  after  we  have  made  sure  that  certain  wrong 
meanings  and  implications  have  been  excluded.  And  there  is  an 
important  issue  about  the  self,  and,  indeed,  about  the  concept  of 
consciousness  itself,  which  is  involved  here.  Is  it  not  often  supposed 
that  the  reason  why  one  has  an  immediate  and  indubitable  knowl- 
edge of  one's  self  lies  in  the  fact  that  one  is  one's  self,  that  the  object 
of  one's  knowledge  is  here  coincident  with  the  knower,  so  that  there 

[  203  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

is  no  possibility  of  duplicity  or  error  in  the  perception  and  knowledge 
of  one's  self?  The  presupposition  here,  persistent  throughout  so 
much  of  modern  philosophy,  is  that  the  total  existence  and  reality 
of  anything  mental  is  exhausted  by  its  being  experienced.  Whatever 
may  be  the  case  with  existences  other  than  one's  own  states  of 
consciousness,  of  these  at  any  rate  it  must  be  said  that  their  esse 
is  identical  with  their  percipi.  This  is  for  Berkeley  simply  a  truism. 
It  is  because  he  first  defines  material  objects  in  terms  of  sensations 
and  perceptions  that  he  can  affirm  their  esse  to  be  literally  identical 
with  their  percipi.  An  unperceived  physical  object,  i.e.,  the  interior 
of  the  earth,  is  not  for  common  sense  an  absurdity;  but  an  unper- 
ceived perception,  an  unfelt  pain  certainly  is,  to  Berkeley  and  to 
common  sense,  a  meaningless  contradiction.  The  presupposition  here 
in  question  is,  then,  that  in  the  case  of  all  mental  existences,  their 
whole  reality  is  identical  with  their  being  experienced.  They  are 
wholly  transparent  and  immediate;  there  is  no  distance  or  separa- 
tion between  the  knower  and  the  known,  the  perceiver  and  the  thing 
perceived.  One  consequence  of  this  assumption,  it  is  very  necessary 
to  observe.  If  this  be  the  case,  then  all  possibility  of  error,  of  illusion, 
of  incomplete  and  inadequate  knowledge  of  the  life  of  conscious- 
ness, is  to  be,  in  principle,  excluded.  How  can  there  be  any  mis- 
taking the  nature  of  something  mental,  all  of  whose  existences 
coincide  with  what  is  felt  and  known,  with  what  is  completely  present 
and  immediate?  "For  since  all  actions  and  sensations  of  the  mind, 
says  Hume,  are  known  to  us  by  consciousness,  they  must  necessarily 
appear  in  every  particular  what  they  are,  and  be  what  they  appear. 
Everything  that  enters  the  mind,  being  in  reality  as  the  perception, 
'tis  impossible  anything  shou'd  to  feeling  appear  different.  This  were 
to  suppose,  that  even  where  we  are  most  intimately  conscious,  we 
might  be  mistaken."2  And  Hume  is  here  but  the  spokesman  for  the 
entire  Cartesian,  "end-term"  tradition.  Contemporary  neo-realism, 
which  is  so  close  to  subjectivism  in  many  ways,  also  here  identifies 
its  fortunes  with  this  Humean  assumption.  Hume  speaks  not  only 
for  himself,  but  for  the  new  realist  when  he  says  "there  is  only  a 
single  existence,  which  I  shall  call  indifferently  object  or  perception, 
according  as  it  shall  seem  best  to  suit  my  purpose,  understanding 

2  "Treatise,"  Book  i,  Part  4,  p.  190,  Selby-Bigge  edition. 

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THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

by  both  of  them  what  any  common  man  understands  by  a  hat,  or 
shoe,  or  stone,  or  any  other  impression,  convey'd  to  him  by  his 
senses."3  Modern  realism  is  also,  like  subjectivism,  a  philosophy 
of  immediacy.  The  only  difference  is  that  whereas  subjectivism 
regards  the  object  as  identical  with  the  idea,  realism  views  the  idea 
as  identical  with  the  object.  In  each  case  the  possibility  of  error 
and  illusion  seems  quite  remote  because  of  the  coincidence,  the 
numerical  identity,  of  the  knower  and  the  known.  But  leaving  the 
neo-realists,  let  us  inquire  into  this  belief  that,  in  the  case  of  all 
mental  existences,  their  esse  is  their  percipi,  and  that,  accordingly, 
all  possibility  of  illusion  and  mistake  in  the  knowledge  of  our  con- 
tents of  consciousness  and  of  the  self  is  to  be  excluded.  This  assump- 
tion must,  I  believe,  be  discarded,  and  in  so  doing,  our  interpretation 
of  the  self  will  be  radically  influenced.  The  belief,  too,  that  the  self 
is  immediately  experienced,  will  require  a  careful  interpretation 
before  it  is  allowed  to  stand. 

Let  us  see  whether,  after  all,  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  in  the 
case  of  mental  existences  and  of  the  self,  there  is  a  difference  between 
their  esse  and  their  percipi.  Is  the  concept  of  a  stable  and  permanent 
mental  structure,  a  totality  of  which  immediate  experience  reveals 
but  a  fragment, — is  such  a  concept  useful  and  is  it  legitimate?  I 
believe  that  it  is,  and  for  the  following  reasons.  First,  we  are  ob- 
viously quite  unable  to  neglect  the  discrepancy  between  an  apparent, 
experienced  self,  and  a  real  self.  Who  does  not  remember  the 
exclamation  of  James  in  the  chapter  on  the  Self?  "Everyone  must 
have  known  so  me  specimen  of  our  mortal  dust  so  intoxicated  with 
the  thought  of  his  own  person  and  the  sound  of  his  own  voice  as 
never  to  be  able  even  to  think  the  truth  when  his  own  autobiography 
was  in  question.  Amiable,  harmless,  radiant  J.  V.  Mayst  thou  ne'er 
wake  to  the  difference  between  thy  real  and  thy  fondly-imagined 
Self."  How,  we  ask,  can  any  such  difference  be  maintained  unless 
more  of  the  self  be  real  than  is  momentarily  experienced,  unless 
indeed  the  self  has  a  being  other  than  its  being  experienced  and  felt? 
And  do  we  not  say,  of  our  motives,  that  we  thought  we  were  acting 
from  such  and  such  motives  but  now  we  see  that  we  were  mistaken? 
Our  real  motives  were  quite  different  from  those  which  we  supposed 

3  "Treatise,"  p.  202.  Cf.  with  this  the  essay  of  James,  "Does  'Consciousness'  Exist?" 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

them  to  be,  i.e.,  from  such  as  were  experienced.  If  Hume  could  say 
of  our  perceptions  that  we  must  proceed  upon  the  assumption  that 
they  "are  our  only  objects,  and  continue  to  exist  even  when  they 
are  not  perceived"  (page  213) — to  Hume  a  false  though  necessary 
assumption — how  much  more  must  we  affirm  of  our  motives  and  of 
our  selves,  that  they  have  an  existence  over  and  above  their  being 
felt.  Psychology  is  not  able  wholly  to  forego  the  concept  of  enduring 
mental  structures  and  systems,  however  puzzled  it  may  be  about 
the  compatibility  of  this  assumption  with  the  traditional  Cartesian- 
Humean  view.  As  an  illustration  of  an  enduring  mental  structure 
whose  being  is  not  exhausted  by  its  being  experienced,  consider  the 
concept  of  sentiment.  A  sentiment — as  that  term  is  used  by  such 
careful  writers  as  Shand,  Stout,  and  McDougall — is  not  the  same 
thing  as  an  emotion,  and  the  difference  is  instructive.  An  emotion, 
like  a  sensation  or  a  pain,  falls  much  more  easily  within  the 
Berkeleyan  formula.  If  an  unfelt  toothache,  i.e.,  the  pain,  is  absurd, 
so  is  an  unfelt  fear  or  anger.  There  is  something  immediate,  momen- 
tary, and  intense  about  an  emotion.  Its  existence  coincides  with  its 
being  experienced.  But  not  so  in  the  case  of  sentiments.  A  sentiment 
is  a  more  permanent,  a  more  enduring  mental  structure,  it  has  more 
the  characteristics  of  a  system  and  a  totality  than  has  an  emotion. 
And  it  has  a  reality  which  exceeds  that  of  any  momentary  pulse  of 
consciousness.  "A  sentiment,  as  we  have  denned  it,  cannot  be 
actually  felt  at  any  one  moment,  as  emotions  can  be  felt.  .  .  .  They 
are  complex  mental  dispositions,  and  may,  as  divers  occasions  arise, 
give  birth  to  the  whole  gamut  of  the  emotions."4  There  are  other 
differences  between  an  emotion  and  a  sentiment,  but  this  alone 
interests  us  here.  It  shows  us  that  the  psychologist  must  fashion 
the  concept  of  a  mental  existence  whose  reality  is  not  coincident 
with  its  immediacy.  A  number  of  further  illustrations  of  the  same 
thing,  drawn  from  psychology,  may  be  noticed.  Consider,  for 
example,  the  difference  between  pleasure  and  happiness.  It  is 

4  Stout:  "Groundwork  of  Psychology,"  p.  223  ff.  The  most  extended  psychological 
analysis  of  sentiments  (in  English)  is  that  of  A.  F.  Shand:  "The  Foundations  of 
Character."  Reference  should  be  made  to  the  chapter  on  Sentiments  in  McDougall's 
"Social  Psychology,"  and  to  the  important  essay  of  Pfander:  "Zur  Psychologic  der 
Gesinnungen"  (of  which  mention  was  earlier  made)  in  Husserl's  "Jahrbuch." 

206 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

analogous  with  the  difference  between  emotion  and  sentiment. 
Happiness  has  a  duration,  it  has  a  dimension,  as  it  were,  which 
pleasure  does  not  possess.  Pleasure  has  less  structure,  less  'form'  to 
it;  it  is  momentary,  as  feeling  and  immediacy  are  momentary. 
Happiness  connotes  something  more  total;  it  is  an  enduring  dis- 
position, of  course  mental,  but  having  an  esse  which  extends  beyond 
its  percipi.  Another  instance,  trespassing  somewhat  upon  the  subject- 
matter  of  our  next  chapter,  touches  upon  the  difference  between  the 
category  of  'experience'  and  that  of  'attitude'  in  interpreting  the 
psychology  of  religion.  In  comparison  with  an  attitude,  an  expe- 
rience is  transient,  vivid,  warm  with  immediacy.  It  is  just  what  it 
is  experienced  as  being.  Now  the  fact  is  sometimes  overlooked  that 
many  religious  persons  never  have  any  religious  experiences,  of 
the  kind,  for  instance,  to  which  James  devoted  the  greater  part 
of  his  discussion  in  "The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience."  But 
such  persons  may  possess  certain  attitudes,  which  can  only  be  ade- 
quately characterized  as  religious.  They  may  not  think  of  them- 
selves as  religious  at  all,  any  more  than  a  happy  child  at  play,  or 
a  person  happily  absorbed  in  his  work  thinks  of  himself  as  happy. 
An  attitude,  then,  has  a  persistence,  a  structure,  the  form  of  a 
totality,  which  makes  it  like  a  sentiment,  and  which  makes  it  differ 
from  an  immediate  experience  just  as  a  sentiment  differs  from  an 
emotion.  Now  such  observations  and  reflections  as  these,  and  many 
others  similar  to  them,  can  lead  to  but  one  conclusion  touching  the 
matter  which  here  interests  us.  We  simply  cannot  say  that  the  very 
nature  of  anything  mental,  such  as  the  self,  precludes  its  possessing 
a  reality  over  and  above  what  is  literally  felt  and  experienced.  The 
distinction  between  appearance  and  reality  holds  also  within  the 
province  of  contents  of  consciousness,  within  the  life  of  the  self. 
Observe,  now,  what  bearing  this  has  on  the  way  in  which  we  shall 
think  of  the  self.  There  is  a  type  of  theory  about  the  self,  nowhere 
more  attractively  set  forth  than  in  James'  "Psychology,"  which  we 
may  call  a  "transverse"  theory.  It  conceives  of  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, flowing  along  in  time,  as  cut  across  transversely  at  the 
junctions,  wherever  we  place  them,  of  present  and  past.  This  is 
utterly  crude,  but  it  may  answer  the  purpose.  Each  present  self, 
through  memory  and  knowledge,  becomes  the  inheritor  of  the  just 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

preceding  self,  and,  consequently,  of  all  the  preceding  selves,  each 
one  of  which  was  at  some  time  actually  real.  The  only  self  which  is 
real  is  one  which  is  telescoped  within  the  limits  of  the  present  mo- 
ment. There  is  a  "never  lapsing  ownership."  Can  we  not  suppose, 
says  James,  that  the  "thought,  the  present  judging  thought,  instead  of 
being  in  any  way  substantially  or  transcendentally  identical  with  the 
former  owner  of  the  past  self,  merely  inherited  his  'title,'  and  thus 
stood  as  his  legal  representative  now?  .  .  .  Each  pulse  of  cognitive 
consciousness,  each  thought,  dies  away  and  is  replaced  by  another."5 
And  why,  let  us  ask,  are  we  driven  to  think  of  the  self  as  a  succes- 
sion of  momentary  "specious  presents,"  as  perhaps  a  title  which 
passes  from  one  to  the  other?  Does  not  the  answer  lie  in  the  fact 
that  we  are  really  committed  to  the  assumption  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing, the  assumption  that  the  whole  reality  of  anything  mental 
must  be  crowded  within  the  very  brief  and  momentary  span  of 
what  is,  at  any  present  moment,  immediately  experienced?  And  if, 
with  those  who  seriously  discuss  mental  attitudes  and  sentiments, 
we  renounce  this  assumption,  are  we  not  entitled,  yes,  driven,  to 
replace  such  a  transverse  theory  by  what  we  may  call  a  "longitudi- 
nal" theory?  By  this  awkward  phrase  we  mean  any  theory  of  the 
self  which  is  not  bound  by  the  very  narrow  limitations  which  mark 
the  boundaries  of  the  present  moment;  we  mean  a  theory  which 
ascribes  to  the  self  a  per  durance  and  continuity  along  or  through 
the  intervals  of  time.  Momentary  experience,  emotion,  pleasure, 
are  "transverse"  categories;  attitude,  sentiment,  happiness,  are 
"longitudinal"  categories.  They  stand  for  mental  structures  which 
endure  through  time,  and  whose  reality  vastly  exceeds  their  being 
experienced.  In  passing,  we  may  note  that  a  distinction  between 
transverse  and  longitudinal  interpretations  of  society  may  also  be 
observed.  Sumner's  "Folkways"  interpretation  is  a  transverse 
theory,  like  James'  account  of  the  self.  The  folkways  of  today 
inherit  from  the  past  and  transmit  to  the  future;  they  do  not  per- 
dure.  They  constitute  no  stable  social  structure,  such  as  an  insti- 
tution or  a  community  which  has  some  life  of  its  own,  bridging  the 
gaps  between  successive  generations  and  folkways.6 

5  "Psychology,"  vol.  i,  p.  339. 

6  This  contrast  is  set  forth  impressively  in  the  monograph  of  Dilthey :  "Der  Aufbau 

f    208   1 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

To  say,  now,  that  the  self  is  something  of  a  total,  enduring  struc- 
ture is  but  to  carry  one  step  further  the  insight  which  results  from 
the  very  necessary  distinction  between  emotion  and  sentiment, 
experience  and  attitude.  A  self  is,  at  least,  an  organized  totality  of 
sentiments  and  attitudes,  which  no  experience  of  ours  succeeds  in 
exhausting.  We  may  say  more.  We  may  again  use  the  focus- fringe 
situation.  Just  as,  in  the  last  chapter,  we  observed  that,  in  compari- 
son with  knowledge,  behavior  is  always  focal  and  local,  so  we  may 
say  here  that  what  is  immediately  experienced  is  but  a  focal  center 
in  comparison  with  the  totality  which  is  apprehended  implicitly. 
Such  a  background  or  fringe  is  that  system  with  which  we  expe- 
rience, rather  than  itself  an  object  of  experience.  To  look  for  the 
self  as  something  experienced  may  indeed  be  similar  to  looking  for 
one's  spectacles  while  one  is  wearing  them.  This  total  structure, 
the  self,  is  not  pieced  together  hypothetically  out  of  momentary 
fragments.  It  is  rather  the  constant  background,  or  fringe,  which 
encompasses  the  present  moment  and  links  the  present  to  the  past.7 
This  concept  of  a  stable  mental  structure,  which  we  have  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  problem  of  the  self,  has  many  points  of  contact 
with  some  familiar  problems  of  metaphysics.  I  dwell  for  a  moment 
upon  one  such.  It  is  the  problem  of  time  itself.  This  quite  empirical 
use  of  the  concept  of  enduring  mental  structures,  such  as  that  of 
sentiments  and  attitudes,  suggests  what  we  might  call  the  converse 
of  the  metaphysical  doctrine  that,  in  some  sense,  the  temporal  series 
is  not  the  ultimate  category  under  which  reality  is  to  be  subsumed. 
In  the  empirical  time  series  the  coming  of  the  present  does  annihilate 
the  past.  And  the  very  type  of  this  incessant  flux  seems  to  be  the 
stream  of  consciousness  itself.  Yet  we  know  that  the  "present 
moment''  of  the  stream  of  thought  is  more  than  an  ideal  meeting 
place  of  past  and  future.  It  is  a  "saddle  back"  and  not  a  "razor  edge." 

der  Geschichtlichen  Welt  in  der  Geisteswissenschaften,"  Berlin  Academy  Proceedings, 
1910. 

7  I  cannot  refrain  from  making  reference  once  more  to  a  really  fruitful  essay  by 
Max  Scheler:  Die  Idole  der  Selbsterkenntnis,  in  "Abhandlungen  und  Aufsatze,"  vol. 
2.  Cf.  the  following  quotation:  "Was  mir  so  gegeben  ist,  erscheint  dabei  stets  auf 
einem  undeutlichen  Hintergrund  des  ganzen  ungeteilten  'Ich.'  Das  in  der  inneren 
Wahrnehmung  erscheinende  Ich  ist  also  stets  als  Totalitat  gegenwartig,  auf  der  sich 
z.  B.  das  Gegenwartsich  nur  als  ein  besonders  helleuchtender  Gipfel  heraushebt."  p.  118. 

[   209   ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

The  time  flux  is,  then,  in  principle,  overcome  in  the  experience  of 
the  present  moment  where  past,  present,  and  even  future  are  grasped 
together  in  one  conscious  span.  How  much  more  is  the  time  flux 
overcome  through  the  building  up  of  stable  and  enduring  mental 
structures,  sentiments,  attitudes,  selves,  institutions  and  traditions 
in  society.  In  these  structures,  immediate  experience,  the  present 
moment,  does  not  cover  the  entire  reality,  the  total  structure.  Their 
esse  is  not  equivalent  to  their  per  dpi. 

We  return  to  our  views  of  the  self.  We  started  out  by  observing 
the  plausibility  of  those  theories  of  the  self  which  lay  stress  upon 
the  immediate  experience  which  each  person  has  of  himself  as  per- 
ceiving, attending,  feeling,  willing,  etc.,  as,  in  brief,  a  center  of 
conscious  activity.  Our  conclusion  so  far  is  that  the  self  may  more 
adequately  be  conceived  as  a  relatively  stable  and  enduring  total 
structure  which  persists  'longitudinally,'  as  it  were,  through  the 
time  series  rather  than  a  succession  of  'transverse'  momentary  selves, 
each  one  passing  on  its  title  to  its  heir.  But  this  has  a  direct  bearing 
upon  the  issue  between  theories  of  activity  and  theories  of  appro- 
priation. For,  the  more  the  self  is  conceived  under  the  form  of  a 
total  structure,  the  more  is  there  for  immediate  experience  to  draw 
upon,  to  appropriate,  and  to  possess.  The  immediately  felt,  outgoing 
energy  and  activity  of  the  mind  may  not,  in  such  a  case,  tell  the 
whole  story.  The  total  self  will  be  thought  of,  not  as  a  memory 
image  projected  into  the  past  from  the  present,  but  as  a  real 
structure.  We  shall  have  won  the  right  to  speak  of  a  whole  self. 
Moreover,  it  will  be  kept  in  mind  that  neither  nature  nor  history 
builds  up  total  structures,  organisms,  selves,  or  communities,  in  a 
vacuum,  and  in  isolation.  Some  environment  these  structures  all 
have,  and  their  life  is  one  of  constant  appropriation  from  that  which 
the  environment  offers.  We  may  remember  all  the  reasons  why  the 
isolation  of  mind,  why  subjectivism  is  an  untenable  hypothesis. 
The  mind's  very  knowledge  of  reality  is  a  form  of  appropriation,  a 
disavowal  of  sheer  projection,  of  animism,  of  the  fabrication  of 
total  structures  which  we  know  to  be  but  fictions.  It  is  the  extension 
of  the  present  moment,  of  the  immediately  experienced  self,  into 
the  past  which  has  so  far  come  to  our  notice.  There  are  organized 
mental  structures  psychologically  continuous  with  the  experienced 

[    210    ] 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

activity  of  the  present,  from  which  the  self  of  the  moment  appro- 
priates some  of  its  content  and  its  meanings.  But  there  is  now,  so 
to  speak,  another  dimension  in  which  the  present  moment  is  to  be 
extended,  another  type  of  structure  from  which  the  present  moment 
draws  some  of  its  substance.  In  setting  forth  the  nature  of  this  other 
source  from  which  selves  appropriate  their  possessions,  we  may 
recall  the  general  analysis  of  the  concept  of  experience  outlined  in 
an  earlier  chapter,  and  what  was  there  said  about  the  deeper,  Pla- 
tonic motives  which  are  to  aid  us  in  interpreting  the  life  of  the 
mind.  Knowledge  of  reality,  it  was  held,  is  never  simply  a  reading 
off  of  the  facts  of  experience.  There  are  possessions  of  the  mind 
which  are  logically  prior  to  the  data  of  experience,  and  of  which 
experience  may  be  said  to  furnish  an  illustration  and  a  vehicle. 
This,  which  we  spoke  of  as  the  Platonic  principle  in  idealism,  takes 
on  a  wealth  of  concrete  meaning  when  we  apply  it  to  the  concept 
of  the  self.  For  this  Platonic  insight  applies  also  to  the  nature  and 
the  knowledge  of  the  self.  We  do  not  deny  that  there  are  'expe- 
riences' both  of  nature,  and  of  the  self.  We  do  deny  that  they  are 
our  sole  possessions.  This  may,  perhaps,  be  made  clearer  by  the 
following  considerations.  Were  the  self  nothing  more  or  other  than 
what  we  actually  experience,  the  self  could  not  possess  some  of  the 
things  which,  short  of  utter  scepticism,  we  believe  it  actually  to 
possess.  A  wholly  empirical  self  could  not  possess  those  things, 
knowledge  and  goodness,  the  possession  of  which  is  our  best 
treasure.  Were  the  self  composed  of  nothing  but  experience-stuff, 
were  it  wholly  temporal,  it  could  not  furnish  the  seat  for  that  which 
we  mean  by  knowledge.  The  existence  of  valid  knowledge  is  never 
merely  a  matter  of  biographical  interest.  Experiences,  events,  are 
all  biographical  items;  they  may  be  dated.  My  acquiring  of  the 
knowledge  of  calculus  and  my  forgetting  it  may  be  dated,  and  these 
events  might  prove  to  be  of  interest  in  my  biography,  but  to  say 
that  I  really  do  know  something  is  different  from  merely  reporting 
a  biographical  item.  It  is  to  say  that  certain  ideas,  beliefs,  which 
are  a  part  of  my  stream  of  thought  and  which  are  to  that  extent 
events,  also  possess  a  certain  value;  it  is  to  say  that  they  are  also 
true.  And  in  being  true,  an  idea  participates  in  an  order  of  things, 
i.e.,  in  reality,  which  is  something  over  and  above  its  membership 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

in  the  series  of  thoughts  and  feelings  which  constitute  my  stream 
of  consciousness  or  even  the  whole  of  my  experience.  What  we  may 
say,  then,  is  that  every  true  idea  is  the  meeting  point  of  two  different 
series,  of  two  dimensions  or  orders  of  being.  A  true  idea  belongs 
to  the  experiences  of  a  self.  It  is  owned  by  some  stream  of  conscious- 
ness, as  a  belief,  a  judgment.  As  such,  it  is  an  event  which  may  be 
dated  and  is,  in  so  far,  a  biographical  item.  But  in  so  far  as  it  is  a 
true  idea,  it  belongs  to  another  series,  and  we  ought  not  to  say  that 
the  fact  of  its  belonging  to  that  other  series  is  simply  a  further 
matter  of  experience.  For,  false  beliefs  and  erroneous  judgments 
have  their  accredited  place  in  the  biographical  experience  series. 
Or,  consider  this  same  matter  in  the  light  of  the  following.  There 
is  a  distinction  which  goes  deep  into  the  heart  of  both  the  Pla- 
tonic and  the  Kantian  philosophies,  between  that  which  is  con- 
tingent, matter  of  fact,  and  that  which  is  inherently  necessary  and 
significant.  We  can  best  catch  the  force  of  this  distinction  from  one 
or  two  concrete  illustrations.  Why  did  the  Deists  in  England,  the 
leaders  of  eighteenth  century  thought  in  France  (excepting  Rous- 
seau), why  did  the  mind  of  the  enlightenment,  distrust  everything 
which  was  "positive,"  i.e.,  historical,  relative  to  a  particular  time  and 
place?  Why  did  it  seek  everywhere  for  that  which  is  "natural"  and 
universal,  common  to  all  men,  and  evident  to  the  light  of  reason? 
Because  this  contrast  between  the  mere  matter  of  fact  and  the 
inherently  necessary  was  vividly  present  to  the  imagination  of  this 
age.  These  men  saw  the  limitations  which  everywhere  hedge  about 
what  is  only  a  particular,  contingent  fact,  what  is  purely  relative 
to  some  local  here-and-now  situation.  There  is  ever  an  element  of 
caprice,  of  chance,  there  is  always  the  possibility  of  a  thing  having 
been  or  being  other  than  it  is,  had  only  some  accidental  set  of  cir- 
cumstances been  altered.  Of  such  matter-of-fact  existences  One  will 
say,  they  happen  to  be  thus  and  thus.  But  of  rational  and  necessary 
realities  and  truths,  one  will  say  they  must  be  as  they  are.  The  three 
angles  of  a  triangle  do  not  merely  happen  to  equal  two  right  angles; 
there  is  a  quality  of  necessity  and  rationality  about  this  relation- 
ship. It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Of  contingent  fact  we  say  something 
else.  It  happens  that  my  watch  is  on  the  table.  It  might  be  other- 
wise; there  is  no  inherent  necessity  about  it.  The  belief  that  there 

[    212     ] 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

is  an  ultimate  necessary  principle  behind  all  law,  independent  of 
the  consent  of  man  and  of  all  historic,  contingent  fact,  constitutes 
the  belief  in  a  Law  of  Nature,  in  the  political  and  juristic  sense. 
And  this  is  the  meaning  of  equity  whose  "claim  to  authority  is 
grounded,  not  on  the  prerogative  of  any  external  person  or  body, 
not  even  on  that  of  the  magistrate  who  enunciates  it,  but  on  the 
special  nature  of  its  principles,  to  which  it  is  alleged  that  all  law 
ought  to  conform."  Equity  "pretends  to  a  paramount  sacredness" 
without  any  "concurrence  of  prince  or  parliamentary  assembly."8 
We  meet  here  once  more  with  autonomous  values.  They,  alone,  save 
us  both  from  caprice  and  from  absolutism,  i.e.,  the  subjection  of 
men  to  the  matter-of-fact  will  and  power  of  a  particular  and  local 
authority.  We  see  the  truth  of  Lord  Acton's  judgment  that  "it  is 
the  Stoics  who  emancipated  mankind  from  its  subjection  to  despotic 
rule,  and  whose  enlightened  and  elevated  views  of  life  bridged  the 
chasm  that  separates  the  ancient  from  the  Christian  state,  and  led 
the  way  to  freedom."9  The  Stoics  did  this  through  holding  fast  to 
just  this  distinction  between  the  merely  matter  of  fact,  and  that 
which  is  rational  and  normative.  But  the  Stoics  built  upon  an  earlier 
philosophical  tradition  and  insight,  which  we  owe  to  the  Greek 
thinkers,  and  above  all  to  the  genius  of  Plato.  And  so  we  come  back 
to  the  Platonic  ingredient  in  idealism,  and  our  problem  of  the  self. 
For  it  is  Plato  who  undertakes,  both  in  science  and  in  political  life, 
to  overcome  the  limitations  of  the  purely  matter  of  fact  and  con- 
tingent by  linking  it  to  an  inherently  rational,  significant  structure. 
We,  in  the  late  modern  world,  are  most  familiar  with  and  at  home 
in  this  Platonic  tradition,  in  the  province  of  natural  science,  spe- 
cially such  sciences  as  make  the  largest  use  of  mathematics.  For 
it  is  a  just  remark  which  is  made  by  Troeltsch  when  he  says  that 
the  essence  of  modern  science  at  the  hands  of  its  greatest  founders, 
Kepler  and  Galileo,  Descartes  and  Newton,  is  precisely  the  dis- 
covery of  rational  necessity  in  the  factual  processes  of  nature  (die 
Aufweisung  einer  rationalen  Notwendigkeit  im  Naturgeschehen).10 

8  Maine:  "Ancient  Law,"  p.  28. 

9  "Essays  on  Liberty,"  p.  24. 

10  Empirismus  und  Platonismus  in  der  Religions  philosophic,  "Schrifren,"  vol.  2, 
p.  367.  My  earlier  statement  is  virtually  a  translation  of  this  from  Troeltsch:  "Aber 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

I  say  that  it  is  in  science  that  we  best  understand  this  Platonic 
insight,  because  the  nineteenth  century  came  so  markedly  under 
the  influence  of  biological  and  historical  tendencies  and  it  is  espe- 
cially in  politics  and  social  matters  that  we  are  for  the  most  part 
content  with  being  the  servants  and  the  instruments  of  matter-of- 
fact  forces.  Even  in  the  physical  sciences,  this  Platonic  insight  was 
for  awhile  threatened  through  the  influence  of  pragmatism,  which 
is  merely  a  deliberate  rejection  of  everything  Platonic,  and  hence 
of  the  foundations  upon  which  the  greatest  successes  of  modern 
science  were  laid.  What  has  this  to  do  with  the  question  about  the 
self?  The  answer  is  that  selves  are  the  places  where  these  two 
orders  of  being  meet  and  join.  There  is  nothing  recondite  about  the 
saying  of  this  unless  squarely  to  face  the  central  mystery  about 
the  life  of  selves  be  recondite.  The  situation  is  wholly  aboveboard 
and  stares  us  in  the  face.  Every  true  idea  that  any  self  possesses 
belongs  to  two  series.  It  is,  once  more,  an  item  in  that  self's  biog- 
raphy, and  it  also  belongs  to  a  structure  whose  autonomous  ration- 
ality is  self-contained.  It  is  the  difference  between  a  cause  and  a 
reason.  My  belief  in  the  Pythagorean  proposition  has,  as  a  mental 
occurrence,  a  set  of  causes  upon  which  it  depends,  certain  preced- 
ing beliefs  and  sensations,  or  if  you  choose,  certain  physical  events 
transpiring  in  my  brain.  But  my  belief  is  also  based  upon  certain 
reasons.  I  can  prove  the  proposition.  My  idea  thus  mediates  between 
a  very  local,  contingent,  temporal  aggregate  of  particles  which  I 
call  my  bodily  organism,  and  an  ideally  significant  and  logical 
system  of  eternally  true  propositions.  My  idea,  if  it  be  true,  "inter- 
prets" the  one  system  to  the  other.  And  my  self  possesses,  then,  not 
only  its  particular,  contingent  experiences,  its  here-and-now  char- 
acter, but  it  also  participates  in  these  significant  structures,  these 
autonomous,  Platonic  ideas.  It  is  the  self's  possession  of  these  which 
confers  validity  upon  any  particular  biographical  event,  whether 
idea  or  deed.  We  may  say  more  than  this.  A  self  is  characterized  by 
the  fusion,  most  intimate,  of  a  contingent,  matter-of-fact,  causal 
series,  and  an  inherently  significant  structure.  That  is  just  what  we 

er  (Plato)  will  uberall  zugleich  die  Ueberwindung  des  bloss  Tatsachlichen  durch  den 
Aufweis  eines  in  ihm  waltenden  und  sich  entfaltenden  rational — notwendigen  Be- 
griffselementes  sein."  p.  367. 

[  "4  ] 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

mean  by  a  self.  The  central  fact  about  a  self  is  the  participation  of 
something  natural  and  organic,  empirical  and  factual,  in  that  which 
is  really  of  value.  Again  in  the  language  of  Troeltsch,  a  self  exists 
through  the  "Aufnahme  absoluter  Werte  in  das  naturhafte  Seelen- 
leben."11  It  is  the  claim  which  the  self  makes  that  its  ideas  shall  not 
only  be  its  ideas,  but  shall  also  be  true,  which  furnishes  the  model 
for  the  procedure  of  the  sciences  which  seek  to  overcome  the  merely 
factual  through  interpreting  it  in  the  light  of  a  logical,  mathematical 
system.  Mechanics  and  physical  science  are  in  this  sense  anthropo- 
morphic and  human,  but  the  self  they  pattern  after  is  one  in  which, 
in  principle,  the  limitations  of  the  factual  have  already  been  over- 
come. 

Let  us  summarize  our  results  thus  far.  We  have  held  that  the  self 
includes  more  than  the  literal  feelings  and  experiences,  which  at  any 
present  moment  are  alive  with  the  "warmth  and  intimacy"  which 
belong  to  the  present  moment.  The  present  self,  our  contents  of 
consciousness  whose  esse  is  coincident  with  their  percipi,  must  be 
filled  out,  if  it  is  to  include  all  that  the  self  stands  for.  And  it  is  to 
be  filled  out  in  two  directions.  First,  the  self  must  be  thought  of  as 
including  a  relatively  stable  and  permanent  mental  structure,  com- 
prising sentiments  and  attitudes  which  make  up  a  totality  and  serve 
as  a  fringe  for  the  more  focal  and  particular  present  moment.  This 
is,  so  to  speak,  a  psychological  extension  of  the  present  moment. 
Secondly,  the  self  must  be  thought  of  as  in  possession  of  those 
significant  structures,  Platonic  Ideas  and  norms  which,  when  fused 
with  the  particular  and  matter-of-fact  items  of  experience,  generate 
knowledge  and  goodness.  This  is,  we  may  say,  an  extension  of  the 
present  moment  not  so  much  into  further  psychological  and  mental 
territory,  as  into  the  realm  of  significant  structures,  autonomously 
valid,  the  participation  in  which  is  the  mark  of  the  life  of  reason. 
A  self  which  is  more  than  a  behaving  organism  is  made  by  appro- 
priating from  and  participating  in  such  significant  structures,  and 
fusing  them  with  tie  particular  and  contingent  items  of  its  expe- 
rience and  biography.  We  have  been  defending,  then,  what  can  be 
called  a  theory  of  appropriation.  But  what  of  the  activity  of  selves; 

""Werke,"  vol.  2,  p.  853. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

how  shall  we  make  provision  for  those  motives  which  cause  so  many 
writers  to  stress  the  unique  activity  of  conscious  selves? 

By  way  of  an  answer  to  this  question,  we  may  first  recall  the 
necessity  of  distinguishing  between  causal  efficacy  and  the  appre- 
hension and  development  of  meaning.  There  is  intelligent  activity 
involved  in  successfully  making  a  fire  outdoors  in  the  rain;  there 
is  activity  involved  in  listening  to  music  and  apprehending  its  beauty 
and  its  meaning,  or  in  conversing  with  a  friend  and  developing 
common  ideas  and  interests.  But  surely  here  are  two  different  types 
of  activity  which,  however  intimately  they  may  be  related  in  many 
of  the  specific  things  we  do,  are,  in  principle,  distinct.  It  is  the 
distinction  once  more  between  adequately  responding  to  a  stimulus 
and  apprehending  an  object,  appropriating  a  meaning;  it  is  the 
difference  between  the  pragmatic  and  the  non-pragmatic  interests. 
With  the  necessity  of  being  clear  about  this  distinction  we  have 
already  dealt  at  some  length,  and  we  need  pursue  it  here  no  further. 
For  we  are  here  concerned  with  understanding  the  relation  between 
the  attitudes  of  appropriation  and  of  activity,  with  seeing  the  place 
which  a  life  of  activity  and  freedom  may  have  in  a  world  where 
there  are  significant  structures  to  be  appropriated.  Is  the  interest 
in  possessing  and  in  contemplating  significant  structures  utterly 
static  and  conservative,  or  does  it  give  scope  for  the  individual,  for 
freedom,  for  activity?  Is  it  consonant  with  the  impelling  radicalism, 
more  necessary  now  than  ever,  of  reconstructing  and  building  up 
our  world  anew?  It  will  be  seen  that  we  are  touching  here  once 
again  upon  the  central  question,  the  place  which  idealism  may  still 
claim  in  the  modern  age.  In  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  but  one 
aspect  of  this  question  will  come  before  us,  that  which  concerns 
especially  the  activities  and  the  deeds  of  selves.  What  I  shall  try 
to  make  clear  is  the  way  in  which  both  appropriation  from  without 
and  activity  from  within  meet  and  interpenetrate  in  the  life  of  selves 
and  individuals. 

There  is,  first,  a  very  familiar  issue  about  the  way  in  which  his- 
torical events  and  achievements  had  best  be  interpreted,  and  the 
part  taken  by  individuals  in  historical  processes.  There  are  historians 
who  care  nothing  for  institutions  and  there  are  those  who  care  not 
at  all  about  individuals.  There  are  those  who  believe  that  every 

[  216  ] 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

significant  historical  change  must  have  been  somewhere  initiated 
by  an  individual,  and  there  are  those  who  view  the  individual  merely 
as  one  who  seizes  upon  and  utters  forces  which  he  finds  already 
in  existence  and  which  he  does  not  at  all  create.  Place  side  by  side 
these  two  statements.  "The  great  religious  movements  which  have 
stirred  humanity  to  its  depths  and  altered  the  beliefs  of  nations 
spring  ultimately  from  the  conscious  and  deliberate  efforts  of 
extraordinary  minds,  not  from  the  blind  unconscious  operation  of 
the  multitude."12  And  then  this:  "Humility  and  religion  are  neither 
the  discovery  nor  the  private  possession  of  a  few  'higher  intelli- 
gences/ but  are  bound  up  with  the  native  tendencies  and  with  the 
social  development  of  ordinary  humanity."13  There  is  the  principle, 
explicitly  formulated  by  Baur,  "alle  geschichtliche  Personen  sind 
flir  uns  blosse  Namen,"  and  there  is  the  Great  Man,  the  hero 
conception  of  Carlyle,  and  of  William  James  who  held  that  all 
historical  and  social  changes  are  due  "to  the  accumulated  in- 
fluences of  individuals,  of  their  examples,  their  initiatives,  and  their 
decisions."14 

The  issue  between  these  two  interpretations  of  history,  familiar 
as  it  is,  touches  deeply  other  central  problems.  Thus,  when  one 
surveys  any  considerable  portion  of  the  world,  one  finds  abundant 
evidences  of  change,  of  evolution,  of  something  which  we  call  lower 
becoming  something  which  we  are  likely  to  call  higher.  The  inor- 
ganic world  forms  the  indispensable  basis  for  the  organic  world; 
it  in  turn  precedes  the  world  of  consciousness,  and  within  the  con- 
scious order  the  instinctive  and  involuntary  provide  the  foundations 
for  the  reflective  and  the  voluntary.  Now  any  process  of  develop- 
ment may  be  interpreted  in  one  of  two  ways.  Either  that  which  is 
later  and  "higher"  merely  unfolds,  utters,  renders  explicit  and 
articulate  that  which  is  earlier  and  "lower,"  or  it  transforms  and 

12Frazer:  "Adonis,"  p.  311. 

13Marett:  "The  Birth  of  Humility,"  p.  13. 

14  Great  Men  and  their  Environment,  in  "The  Will  to  Believe,"  etc.,  p.  218.  I  quote 
one  more  passage,  again  from  a  competent  historian.  "But  we  must  look  beyond  mere 
individuals.  In  the  great  ages  of  the  world  individuals  are  but  the  instruments  which 
are  used  by  ideas  and  tendencies.  If  Paul  had  never  become  a  Christian,  the  work  he 
did  would  have  been  done  by  others;  and  no  one  felt  this  more  strongly  than  the 
apostle  himself."  Percy  Gardner:  "The  Growth  of  Christianity,"  p.  85. 

[  "7  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

really  adds  to  the  world  through  that  which  it  contributes.  In  the 
former  case,  it  appropriates  the  more  elementary  and  the  earlier, 
and  is  thus  in  reality  but  a  prolongation  of  the  "simpler"  structures 
which  precede.  In  tie  latter  case  it  contributes  something  which  it 
does  not  borrow;  it  is  self-active  and  creative  from  within.  Does 
consciousness  but  voice  the  body's  interests,  or  does  consciousness 
have  some  interests  of  its  own?  Is  reason  but  instinct  become  aware 
of  itself,  or  does  it  disclose  new  values  and  new  motives?  Does  the 
community,  for  instance  the  state  and  the  ordered  institutions  of 
historical  man,  but  give  utterance  and  protection  to  the  natural 
interests  and  rights  of  the  individual,  or  does  it  add  to  the  wealth 
of  his  interests,  transforming  perhaps  those  concerns  and  motives 
which  he  has  inherited  from  a  "state  of  nature"?  Does  the  present 
but  appropriate  and  prolong  the  past,  or  does  it  add  to  the  past, 
contributing  something  which  it  does  in  no  way  borrow?  These  are 
all  analogous  questions.  They  are  pertinent  to  our  inquiry  as  to 
the  relative  part  played  by  appropriation  and  activity,  knowledge 
and  will,  in  the  life  of  selves.  Each  of  the  two  alternative  answers 
to  these  questions  appears  to  be  strongest  in  pointing  out  the  weak- 
ness of  its  opponent.  Thus,  one  points  out  that  the  whole  meaning 
of  development,  of  history,  of  life  quite  drops  out  if  the  "higher"  or 
later  merely  prolongs  without  reconstructing  the  "lower"  or  earlier. 
Were  such  the  case,  indeed,  we  simply  would  have  no  problem  what- 
ever on  our  hands.  We  face  problems  here  because  there  are  dis- 
continuities, because  there  are  selves,  local  centers  of  disturbance 
and  change.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  one  may  urge  no  less  decisively 
that  unless  the  earlier  and  the  "lower"  contain  the  ground  for  the 
later  and  "higher,"  unless  the  life  and  the  deeds  of  an  individual  do 
really  knit  themselves  into  and  utter  the  forces  really  within  the 
environment,  then  his  own  contributions  will  avail  nothing,  and  will 
be  vain  and  empty.  The  activities  of  such  an  individual  will  be  re- 
jected as  an  external  gift,  an  intruding  charity  which  is  not  wanted 
because  it  is  no  completion  and  fulfillment,  no  appropriation  and 
utterance  of  what  is  really  there. 

There  is  only  one  solution  of  this  dilemma  which  can,  in  the  end, 
satisfy  us.  We  must  discover  a  situation  in  which  the  "higher"  can 
not  only  build  upon  the  "lower,"  appropriate  and  give  voice  to  it, 

[  218  ] 


THE  SELF  AND  THE  COMMUNITY 

thereby  escaping  emptiness  and  shallowness,  but  also  be  not  merely 
the  repetition  and  the  prolongation  of  the  lower.  We  want  to  discover 
an  order  in  which  there  are  both  appropriation  and  activity.  And 
such  a  situation,  such  a  type  of  order,  surely  is  to  be  found  nowhere 
except  in  what  is  essentially  a  community,  a  social  and  a  spiritual 
order.  No  purely  mechanical  order  can  meet  this  double  require- 
ment. There  is,  in  a  mechanical,  time-space  system,  no  novelty,  no 
activity  of  anything  individual;  there  is  only  continuity,  thorough- 
going appropriation  without  alteration  or  leakage.  That  is  precisely 
what  the  conservation  of  energy  connotes.  Also,  a  system  charac- 
terized by  "piecemeal  supernaturalism"  is  no  better  off.  Here  is,  at 
least  in  spots,  sheer  discontinuity;  radical  pluralism;  activity,  but 
no  appropriation.  But  how  different  is  a  social  structure,  a  world 
of  selves.  The  very  commonplaces  of  psychology  are  our  witnesses 
to  the  way  in  which,  in  a  world  of  selves,  appropriation  and  activity 
are  indissolubly  linked  together  in  a  unique  process,  unique  in  the 
sense  that  such  a  fusion  is  exhibited  only  in  a  social  structure.  This 
is  the  bottom  meaning  of  apperception,  of  attention,  of  the  processes 
of  imitation  and  learning,  of  knowing  and  of  willing.  Always  is 
there  appropriation,  recognition  of  something  not  created  and  hence 
not  at  all  subjective.  And  there  is  also  invariably  present  some 
element  of  activity,  individual  emphasis,  and  unique  interest.  Let 
us  state  the  matter  in  this  way.  A  social  world,  a  community  life, 
is  certainly  not  one  in  which  Berkeley's  formula  would  hold.  The 
reality  in  the  midst  of  which  one  is  living  is  not  identical  with  one's 
own  perceptions  and  feelings.  All  is  not  solitary  and  individual. 
There  is  an  objective  significant  structure  which  the  individual  is 
to  acknowledge.  The  social  order  is  not  just  my  "idea."  But  it  is 
equally  true  to  say  that  no  formula  of  sheer  realism  will  exhibit  the 
true  nature  of  a  social  situation.  My  social  environment  is  not  wholly 
independent  of  my  own  recognition  of  it.  You  literally  cease  to  be 
my  fellow,  if  I  refuse  ever  to  recognize  you  as  such.  To  be  sure,  your 
body  is  there  in  space,  but  that  is  all.  A  state;*  an  authority,  a  sover- 
eignty which  is  utterly  realistic,  whose  very  reality  is  not  in  some 
manner  constituted  by  the  voluntary  recognition  and  allegiance 
which  men  yield  it,  is  no  real  sovereign  and  no  real  state.  Authority 
and  political  sovereignty  have  always,  even  in  the  most  despotic 

[  219  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

regime,  some  vestige  of  what  Green  has  called  "that  impalpable 
congeries  of  the  hopes  and  fears  of  a  people,  bound  togther  by 
common  interests  and  sympathy."15  Neither  realism  nor  subjectiv- 
ism, neither  sheer  recognition  of  something  completely  independent, 
nor  activity  and  creativity  in  a  vacuum,  will  describe  the  truth  about 
a  social  situation.  We  must  say,  simply,  that  both  appropriation  and 
activity  are  here  fused  together,  both  continuity  and  novelty,  law 
and  freedom.  Here  is,  let  us  say,  a  third  dimension  in  which  the 
present  moment  and  its  activity  need  to  be  expanded  and  sur- 
rounded before  we  understand  what  the  self  is  or  implies.  The 
present  moment,  we  remember,  participates  in  the  past  and  in 
enduring  mental  structures,  and  this  we  called  its  psychological 
extension.  And  it  participates  in  ideal  meanings,  regulative  ideals, 
autonomous  norms  and  values,  and  this  we  called  its  logical  exten- 
sion. And  now  what  we  say  is  that  it  participates  in  a  social  order, 
it  appropriates  a  community  life.  The  individual  gets  his  significance 
and  his  solidity  because  his  life  expresses  institutions,  traditions, 
hopes  and  ideals  transcending  anything  which  springs  only  from 
within  himself.  Yet,  the  individual  may  be  no  mere  repetition,  and 
no  slave  of  his  community.  He  is  to  interpret  it,  to  make  it  his  own, 
to  discover  himself  in  its  life.  Thus  may  we  see  certainly  one  type 
of  objective  significant  structure,  a  complex  type,  and  one  which  is 
pervasive  in  all  regions  of  our  experience.  How  universal,  how 
cosmic,  may  we  expect  and  hope  to  find  it?  This  raises  the  problem 
of  religion,  and  to  this  subject  we  turn  in  the  next  chapter. 

15  The  Principles  of  Political  Obligation,  "Works,"  vol.  3,  p.  404. 


[    220    ] 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

iT  religion  is  to  be  counted  among  the  foremost  of 
those  significant  interests  and  attitudes  which  are  other 
than  pragmatic  and  utilitarian  will  seem  to  many  a 
doubtful  saying.  It  is,  however,  this  undoubted  char- 
acteristic of  religion  which  will  constitute  the  theme  of 
this  chapter.  Religion,  in  idea  if  not  always  in  fact,  has  been  the 
chief  spokesman  for  the  attitude  of  possession,  of  contemplation, 
of  worship, — we  may  even  say  of  knowledge,  when  these  energies 
of  the  mind  are  taken  at  their  fullest  and  their  deepest.  In  the  total 
economy  of  life's  interests  there  is  room  for  the  apprehension  of 
meanings,  for  participation  in  significant  structures,  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  reality.  And  these  all  fulfill  an  office  other  than  that  of 
response  to  a  stimulus,  other  than  that  of  adaptation  and  behavior. 
To  interpret  the  proper  function  of  religion,  and  rightly  to  judge  of 
its  destiny  is  to  understand,  in  something  of  its  concrete  significance, 
the  import  of  these  non-pragmatic  interests.  Moreover,  that  religion, 
in  some  fashion  and  in  greater  or  less  degree,  is  a  matter  of  feeling 
will  probably  be  admitted.  In  seeking,  then,  to  understand  the  office 
of  religion  we  shall  find  ourselves  confronted  by  some  of  those 
vexed  issues  as  to  the  relation  between  the  intellect  and  such 
energies  of  the  mind  as  imagination  and  appreciation,  sympathy 
and  love,  in  short,  between  idea  and  feeling.  There  are  two  situations 
in  which  this  question  as  to  the  relation  between  idea  and  feeling 
arises,  and  a  consideration  of  these  two  large  situations  will  aid  us 
in  understanding  the  nature  and  the  office  of  religion. 

The  first  situation  comes  to  light  when  we  reflect  Upon  the  dis- 
tinction between  two  different  regions  of  experience,  and  two  con- 
trasting types  of  knowledge.  In  those  ranges  of  our  knowledge  and 
our  sciences  which  are  called  exact,  such  as  mathematics  or  me- 

[    221    ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

chanics,  we  find  it  both  easy  and  necessary  to  mark  off  the  indi- 
vidual thinker,  discoverer,  investigator  from  the  truths  and  theories 
which  he  discovers  and  propounds.  All  intellectual  and  scientific 
achievement  is,  indeed,  in  an  important  sense,  individual.  It  is 
always  some  individual  thinker  who  is  responsible  for  every  known 
truth,  for  every  fruitful  hypothesis  which  has  emerged  in  the 
development  of  science  and  of  philosophy.  But,  in  that  region  of 
our  knowledge  which  we  are  now  calling  to  mind,  the  truths,  theories 
and  hypotheses,  once  discovered  or  invented,  propounded  and  set 
forth  in  books,  may  be  understood  and  tested  without  making  any 
explicit  reference  to  the  individual  thinker  who  first  discovered  them 
and  sent  them  on  their  way.  One  need  know  and  care  little  enough 
about  the  individual  man  Pythagoras,  or  the  life  and  aspirations 
of  the  Pythagorean  community  in  order  to  understand  and  to  verify 
the  Pythagorean  proposition  in  geometry.  Nor  need  one  interest 
himself  in  the  man  Robert  Boyle,  nor  in  the  culture  of  seventeenth 
century  England,  in  order  to  grasp  the  meaning  and  verify  the  truth 
of  Boyle's  law  in  physics.  Once  born,  once  discovered,  these  truths 
and  theories  of  mathematics  and  of  science  live,  so  to  speak,  a  free 
life  of  their  own.  They  sever  themselves  from  all  local  attachment 
to  the  mind  which  first  formulated  them,  and  gave  them  birth. 
Such  truths,  we  say,  are  objective  and  universal.  That  identical 
proposition  in  geometry  which  is  ascribed  to  Pythagoras  might  have 
been,  and  very  likely  has  been  discovered  frequently  by  various 
individuals  and  in  varying  circumstances  of  life  and  of  culture. 
No  one  of  these  individual  thinkers,  then,  puts  anything  of  his 
unique,  individual  self  into  such  a  theorem.  It  passes  as  common 
currency  in  the  intellectual  market,  freely  changing  hands,  trans- 
mitted from  countless  teachers  to  countless  pupils,  but  never  bear- 
ing the  marks  of  any  individual  mind  or  age  through  which  it  has 
passed.  In  respect  to  such  wares,  the  individual  is  but  a  transparent 
vehicle  for  truths  which  might  have  been  discovered  and  uttered  by 
any  other  mind,  at  any  other  time  and  place,  so  far,  at  least,  as  any 
characteristic  of  the  true  proposition  itself  is  concerned.  Yet,  we 
do  well  not  to  forget  that  all  this  mass  of  common  intellectual  cur- 
rency does  bear  upon  it  some  stamp,  which  attests  its  genuineness 
and  its  validity.  Such  a  stamp  issues  from  the  scientific  mind  and 

[    222    ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

tradition  itself,  from  the  nature  of  an  autonomous  intelligence  which 
reserves  the  right  to  accept  only  such  currency  as  conforms  to  its 
own  standards  and  laws.  Such  is  the  permanent  outcome  and  lesson 
of  the  Kantian  analysis  of  the  nature  and  basis  of  our  knowledge. 
Because,  then,  nothing  individual  enters  into  the  texture  of  scien- 
tific truths,  it  does  not  follow  that  nothing  ideal,  nothing  derived 
from  the  autonomous  realm  of  mind,  enters  therein.  But  it  is  not 
this  Kantian  insight  which  here  demands  our  notice  so  much  as  the 
fact  that  science  does,  in  vast  regions  of  our  knowledge,  avow  an 
exclusive  interest  in  such  truths  as  can  be  understood  wholly  apart 
from  the  individual  selves  who  propounded  them  and  who  transmit 
them. 

But  this  is  not  the  sole  region  either  of  our  interest  or  of  our 
knowledge.  There  is  another  domain,  in  which  it  is  less  easy  sharply 
to  mark  off  the  individual  person  and  thinker  from  the  results  which 
issue  from  his  thinking,  and  the  products  of  his  art.  Here,  so  much 
of  himself  goes  into  his  work  that,  in  order  to  understand  it,  there 
is  need  to  watch  the  manner  in  which  it  issues  from  the  individual's 
own  self.  The  personality  of  the  originator,  whether  creator  or 
thinker,  becomes  so  mixed  with  his  product  that  we  cannot  go  far 
in  comprehending  that  product  without  some  appreciative  insight 
into  the  individual  self  of  the  originator.  All  art  I  suppose  to  exhibit 
something  of  this  trait,  though  in  varying  degrees,  poetry  more  than 
music,  and  lyric  poetry  more  than  epic  or  dramatic  poetry.  And  not 
only  is  a  work  of  art  permeated,  to  some  extent,  with  the  individual 
character  of  the  artist,  but  it  bears,  as  well,  the  marks  of  the  indi- 
vidual age  and  culture  in  which  it  was  produced.  To  read  the 
"Divine  Comedy"  with  intelligent  understanding  is  not  only  to 
enter  into  the  mind  of  the  man  Dante,  but  into  the  mind  of  the 
medieval  age  as  well.  Philosophy,  if  we  choose  to  contrast  it  with 
science,  shows  us,  unquestionably,  thought-structures  into  which  the 
individual  thinker  has  put  more  of  himself  and  of  his  age,  more  of 
all  the  varied  energies  of  his  life  and  his  experience — feeling,  passion, 
and  imagination  as  well  as  idea  and  thought — than  is  the  case  with 
science.  This  explains  why  it  is  that  the  history  of  philosophy  bears 
a  more  intimate  relation  to  the  problems  of  philosophy  than  the 
history  of  scientific  ideas  bears  to  the  validity  and  the  truth  of  those 

[  223  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

ideas.  There  is  more  of  the  total  and  individual  man  and  his  age  in 
the  dialogues  of  Plato  than  in  Newton's  "Principia." 

But  if  art  and  philosophy  show  us  something  of  that  region  in 
which  the  thinker  and  his  deeds  are  so  intertwined  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  understand  his  ideas  apart  from  the  energies  of  the  self 
which  enter  into  them,  religion  may  be  said  to  explore  farther  and 
deeper  reaches  of  that  same  region.  I  believe  that  many  of  the 
central  and  most  characteristic  traits  of  the  religious  attitude  are 
to  be  understood  only  in  the  light  of  the  situation  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. We  have  already  met  with  this  situation  in  studying  some 
of  the  relations  between  Platonism  and  Christianity.  There  we  were 
interested  both  in  the  similarity  and  the  differences  in  the  Platonic 
contemplation  of  the  Idea,  and  in  the  Christian  loyalty  to  an  indi- 
vidual and  historical  life  and  community.  That  religion  is  supremely 
concerned  with  individual  selves,  places,  and  events,  that  it  lives 
through  participation  in  the  historic  life  of  some  vital  tradition  and 
community,  must  be  patent  to  anyone  who  cares  to  understand  the 
religious  attitude.  And  also,  correlated  with  this  fact,  is  the  addi- 
tional characteristic  of  religion,  that  its  interest  is  fundamentally 
non-pragmatic.  Religion  grows  out  of  the  discovery  of  and  love  for 
significant  individual  and  historical  structures,  which  live  in  time, 
even  if  they  also  participate  in  values  which  are  more  than  temporal. 
Of  such  structures,  a  "beloved  community"  provides  us  with  our 
most  concrete  instance.  Religion,  when  purged  of  magic — as  it  may 
be  in  idea  if  not,  alas,  in  fact — is  something  quite  different  from 
man's  interest  in  utilizing  and  controlling  his  world,  in  responding 
effectively  to  stimuli.  The  interest  of  religion  terminates  not  in 
behavior  following  upon  a  stimulus,  but  in  the  apprehension  of 
meaning,  the  possession  of  an  object,  the  knowledge  of  reality.  To 
be  sure,  our  age  seldom  interprets  religion  thus.  Rather  does  it 
estimate  religion  in  accordance  with  the  presupposition  that  nothing 
can  be  significant  for  the  modern  man  except  that  which  contributes 
to  his  forward-looking  interest  in  control,  organization,  and  activity; 
in  behavior  and  the  anticipation  of  behavior.  How  deep  and  how 
persistent  are  the  motives  which  have  urged  the  modern  mind  to  the 
tacit  or  avowed  acknowledgment  of  this  faith  we  have  already  seen. 
The  influence  of  biology;  the  retreat  of  the  intellect;  democracy, 

[    224    ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

boldly  generalized;  and,  above  all,  the  forces  of  modern  economic 
rationalism  have  all  tended  to  sweep  the  mind  clear  of  any  disposi- 
tion to  recognize  non-pragmatic  values.  When  confronted  by  such  an 
idea  system,  the  most  that  religion  may  claim  is  a  zest  for  social 
activity,  for  "practical"  concerns,  an  interest  in  promoting  social 
reform.  "Even  prelates  and  missionaries,"  writes  Mr.  Santayana, 
"are  hardly  sincere  or  conscious  of  an  honest  function,  save  as  they 
devote  themselves  to  social  work."  Surely  such  "practical  religion" 
represents  but  feebly  the  historical  energy  and  function  of  religion; 
it  witnesses  rather  to  the  success  with  which  the  biological  and  eco- 
nomic (capitalistic)  interest  of  men  in  instrumental  power  and  prag- 
matic mastery  have  all  but  eaten  their  way  into  the  very  citadel  of 
that  interest  which  historically  has  been  the  spokesman  for  posses- 
sion and  contemplation,  for  the  love  and  worship  of  some  significant 
structure,  which  alone  makes  any  activity  and  any  mastery  worth 
while.  And  no  wonder  that  religion,  even  "practical  religion,"  lan- 
guishes when  expert  and  trained  secular  structures  are  at  hand 
equipped  and  competent  to  organize  the  practical  concerns  of  men. 
Religion  will  always  bungle  when  it  competes  with  the  intelligent 
and  the  scientific  control  of  life  processes  and  their  environment. 
For  quite  different  purposes  has  it,  since  its  early  attempts  to  throw 
off  magic,  developed  its  most  characteristic  structures  and  its  life. 
"Uti  non  frui  bonis  terrenis,  frui  non  uti  Deo."  We  may  perhaps 
question  the  first  clause,  but  surely  not  the  second,  and  Augustine 
speaks  with  authority.  One  may  not  say  that  having  taken  this 
stand  we  are  of  necessity  committed  to  all  that  is  reactionary  and 
conservative.  Indeed,  the  contrary  seems  to  me  the  natural  impli- 
cation. One  may  be  and  will  be  fearless  and  radical  in  thinking 
through  the  task  of  social  reconstruction  and  social  justice,  precisely 
because  one  cherishes  and  participates  in  significant  structures, 
which  are  the  source  of  guidance  and  of  loyalty. 

Religion,  then,  stands  for  an  interest  in  participating  in,  in  know- 
ing a  significant  structure,  and  one  which  is  both  individual  and 
historical.  But  now  we  may  recall  what  we  said  a  moment  ago  about 
the  way  in  which  an  individual  being  may  express  himself  in  deeds 
and  products  which  may  not  be  adequately  apprehended  independ- 
ently of  their  source,  but  which  are  penetrated  by  meanings  intel- 

[  225  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

ligible  only  as  we  enter  into  the  individual  mind  or  minds  which 
discovered  them  or  brought  them  into  being.  And  what  I  now  wish 
to  urge  is  this:  There  is  a  certain  correlation  between  the  nature 
of  any  structure  which  is  to  be  apprehended  and  the  nature  of  such 
energies  as  are  involved  in  its  apprehension.  Especially,  the  more 
concrete  is  any  structure,  the  more  total  and  concrete  must  be  the 
mind's  activities  if  the  mind  is  to  succeed  in  knowing  that  structure. 
An  idea,  surrounded  by  feeling  and  kindled  by  imagination,  is  more 
complex  and — one  may  surely  say — more  concrete  than  is  idea 
standing  alone.  Accordingly,  those  truths  which,  once  propounded, 
are  intelligible  without  making  any  reference  to  their  source  in  some 
individual  mind  and  age,  may  be  apprehended  by  idea  alone.  But 
it  is  otherwise  with  all  such  structures  as  embody  within  themselves 
genuinely  individual  meanings,  purposes,  and  deeds.  Wherever  an 
individual  self,  community  or  age  has  really  put  something  of  itself 
into  its  deeds,  and  has  mixed  itself  with  its  products,  in  such  cases 
idea  alone  will  not  be  adequate  to  participate  in  or  to  obtain  a 
knowledge  of  the  significant  structure  in  question.  What  I  am  say- 
ing, then,  is  that  there  are  circumstances  in  which  feeling  and 
imagination,  sympathy  and  love  are  vehicles  of  knowledge.  Without 
the  functioning  of  these  energies  which  are  other  than  idea,  certain 
significant  structures  could  not  be  known  and  participated  in.  So 
far  from  feeling  always  and  necessarily  being  subjective,  wholly 
lacking  in  an  object,  we  may  say  of  it  what  our  general  idealistic 
thesis  has  said  of  the  whole  life  of  mind,  that  it  is  in  communication 
with  and  in  possession  of  the  real.  Error  and  illusion  are  to  be 
recognized  and  provided  for  as  one  may,  here  as  elsewhere.  But 
error  becomes  a  problem  only  because  truth  is  the  expected  thing, 
and  only  if  some  truth  is  indubitably  the  possession  of  the  mind. 
Not  life  but  death,  not  memory  but  forgetfulness,  not  the  mind's 
continuity  with  the  real  but  its  isolation  and  its  futility,  awaken 
wonder  and  demand  explanation.1 

1  Cf .  the  following  from  Dilthey :  "Die  Natur  erklaren  wir,  das  Seelenleben  verstehen 
wir."  .  .  .  "Wir  erklaren  durch  rein  intellectuelle  Prozesse,  aber  wir  verstehen  durch 
das  zusammenwirken  aller  Gemiitskrafte  in  der  Auffassung."  Ideen  uber  eine  beschrie- 
bende  u.  zergliedernde  Psychologie.  Berlin  Akadamie,  1894,  pp.  1314,  1342.  Cf.  also 

226 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

It  may  be  admitted  willingly  that  the  term  "feeling"  is  not  ade- 
quate to  denote  the  regions  of  our  experience  here  in  question.  We 
have  used  it  here  simply  as  the  most  familiar  of  the  terms  which 
mark  out  some  of  those  energies  of  the  mind  which  are  other  than 
intellect  and  idea.  But  I  would  wish  to  guard  against  the  implication 
that  there  is  a  clear-cut  and  decisive  demarcation  between  reason 
and  sympathetic  imagination,  idea  and  feeling.  Indeed,  one  beneficial 
result  of  attempting  to  view  the  matter  as  we  have  been  doing  is 
the  breaking  down  of  the  easy  antithesis  which  controversies  about 
intellectualism  are  too  prone  to  build  upon.  For,  there  are  varying 
distances  between  the  life  of  concrete  individual  selves  and  commu- 
nities, and  the  products  or  embodiments  of  their  thinking.  The 
greater  the  distance,  the  less  will  any  such  content  be  penetrated 
by  the  individual,  and  the  less  will  '  feeling7  be  involved  in  its  appre- 
hension. Mathematics  and  the  exact  sciences  are  concerned  with 
such  truths  as  these;  everything  individual  is  here  left  behind  and 
ideas  alone  function  in  the  knowledge  of  such  systems.  But  one  may 
approach  nearer  to  the  deeds  and  life  of  individual  structures, 
selves,  communities,  nations.  As  one  does  so,  some  element  of  feeling 
and  will,  something  akin  to  love  and  sympathy  must  needs  function 
with  idea  if  such  individual  structures  are  to  be  known  as  they  are. 
Such  structures,  as  well  as  the  energies  which  function  in  their 
apprehension,  are  more  concrete,  in  the  proper  sense  of  that  term. 
Here,  feeling  and  idea,  the  individual  and  that  which  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  his  thought,  are  concreted  together.  There  is  no  radical  and 
qualitative  opposition  between  feeling  and  idea.  It  is  a  matter  of 
greater  or  less  distance  from  some  individual  source,  from  some 
unique  and  determinate  purpose  and  life.  We  may  start  nearest  to 
the  concrete  individual  and  say  with  James  that  "feelings  are  the 
germ  and  starting  point  of  cognition,  thoughts  the  developed  tree."2 
Or  we  may  start  with  that  which  is  least  individual  and  most  uni- 
versal, with  mathematics  and  mechanics,  and  we  might  see  how  this 
is  to  be  surrounded  more  and  more  by  concrete  and  individual 
structures,  requiring  more  and  more  the  play  of  feeling  and  imagi- 

the  discussion  of  Webb  in  "Problems  in  the  Relations  of  God  and  Man,"  p.  59,  and 
Merz:  "Religion  and  Science,"  pp.  60  ff. 
2  "Psychology,"  vol.  i,  p.  222. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

nation  for  their  adequate  apprehension.  It  is  essentially  thus  that 
the  idealistic  critique  of  naturalism  proceeds,  as  is  exhibited  for 
instance  in  Ward's  "Naturalism  and  Agnosticism."  Again,  in  this 
situation,  we  may  be  aided  by  the  focus-fringe  analogy.  Idea  is  ever 
precise,  explicit,  fully  attended  to;  feeling  connotes  that  which  is 
less  articulate  and  formal,  the  vaguer  background  and  fringe  which 
surround  the  focal  center  of  our  attention.  But  no  hard  and  fast 
barrier  separates  them,  and  both  may  be  cognitive.  Ideas,  purged 
of  feeling,  may  know  such  truths  as  have  a  content  and  meaning 
of  which  no  individual  purpose  forms  any  part.  Feeling  and  love, 
imagination  and  sympathetic  appreciation  may  know  the  more  total 
and  complex  structures,  which  cannot  be  torn  away  from  their  source 
in  the  life  of  some  individual  self  or  community. 

The  bearing  of  this  upon  the  interpretation  of  religion  will  be 
clear  enough.  Religion  is,  psychologically,  a  matter  of  feeling  rather 
than  of  idea.  This  need  not  mean  that  idea  is  lacking.  This  need 
imply  no  rejection  of  the  autonomy  and  integrity  of  ideas.  This 
does  not  mean  that  religion  is  wholly  a  matter  of  individual  expe- 
rience and  subjective  immediacy.  The  argument  points  indeed  in 
quite  an  opposite  direction.  It  opens  the  way  for  conceiving  of 
religion  both  as  an  instance  of  those  interests  and  attitudes  which 
are  cognitive,  which  possess  and  participate  in  real  structures,  and 
also  as,  on  the  whole,  a  matter  of  feeling  and  imagination.  And  it 
does  so  through  no  appeal  to  any  abnormal  or  unusual  experiences, 
but  through  observing  the  part  actually  played  by  mental  energies 
other  than  sheer  idea  in  the  apprehension  of  individual  structures 
and  meanings.  But  to  stress  the  fact  that  religion  is  primarily  a 
matter  of  feeling,  or  something  akin  to  feeling,  has  a  further 
implication.  For,  feeling  is  linked,  psychologically,  with  emotion 
and  with  instinct,  with  all  that  which  is  most  primitive  and  potent 
among  the  constitutive  and  moving  forces  of  life.  And  life  itself, 
when  reduced  to  its  most  fundamental  terms,  seems  to  be  the 
maintenance  of  a  particular  interest  as  against  an  environment 
which  does  indeed  tolerate,  and  which  may,  for  a  while,  sustain  the 
vital  interest.  But,  any  living  body  makes  incessant  demands  upon 
its  world;  it  is  partial  to  and  selective  of  such  features  of  the  envi- 
ronment as  are  pertinent  to  its  own  interests.  And  all  such  objects, 

[  228  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

selected  because  they  are  relevant  to  the  vital  interests  at  stake,  are 
attended  to  with  a  glow  of  emotion,  with  feeling  and  with  "interest." 
Now  especially  noteworthy,  in  this  respect,  is  the  feeling  tone  which 
accompanies  the  individual's  attention  to  and  participation  in  the 
life  of  his  social  group.  That  man's  social  experience  does  readily 
become  suffused  with  emotions  and  feelings  of  a  mystical  and  reli- 
gious quality  is  not  to  be  doubted.  The  loyalty  of  any  individual  to 
some  social  community  which  utterly  commands  his  devotion  and 
his  life  interests  is  piety  and  it  is  religion.  We  have  dwelt  upon  this 
sufficiently  in  an  earlier  chapter.3  But  just  here,  when  we  see  the 
psychological  continuity  between  religious  devotion,  full  of  emo- 
tional ardor  and  mystic  piety,  and  those  vital  interests,  represented 
by  the  primary  instincts,  which  seize  upon  such  portions  of  the 
environment  as  are  pertinent  to  them,  we  face  an  issue  of  capital 
and  central  importance.  The  problem  touches  upon  a  divergence 
and  conflict  between  fundamental  assumptions,  and  it  confronts  us 
everywhere  in  our  thinking.  Reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  the 
radical  issue  in  all  our  philosophy  becomes  this.  We  must  say  one 
of  two  things.  Either  our  beliefs  and  our  judgments,  our  preferences 
and  our  loyalties  are  not  valid  unless  they  conform  to  the  require- 
ments of  some  such  function  and  energy  of  the  mind  as  men  have 
meant  to  denote  by  the  term  'reason' :  this  means  that  no  instinctive 
proclivity,  no  natural  interest  is  justified  merely  because  of  the  fact 
that  it  happens  to  exist;  only  such  life  activities  as  may  be  justified 
by  the  standards  of  reason  shall  be  allowed  to  stand.  This  is,  of 
course,  the  Socratic  conviction:  a  life  which  is  not  criticized  is  not 
one  which  is  fit  for  a  human  being  to  live.  Or,  we  shall  say  the  other 
thing:  having  discovered,  beneath  the  life  of  reason  and  idea  the 
welter  of  instinct  and  of  impulse,  we  shall  say  that  reason  is  no  judge 
which  stands  above  life,  but  is  merely  the  voice  which  gives  utter- 
ance to  a  preexisting  particular  interest.  Ideas  and  ideals  will  now 
be  viewed  as  reflecting  the  preferences  of  organisms  which  must 

3  For  confirmatory  details,  one  had  best  consult  the  writings  of  Durkheim  and 
his  school.  Simmel  has  some  pertinent  remarks  on  this  head  in  "Die  Religion,"  pp. 
28  ff.  A  noteworthy  statement  of  this  same  conviction  appears  also  in  the  recent  book 
of  Loisy,  "La  Religion"  (1917),  a  fervid  and  eloquent  interpretation  of  religion  as 
the  very  essence  of  heroic  devotion  to  one's  beloved  nation. 

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IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

first  act  and  live  before  they  think  and  reason  and  know.  We  may 
best  call  this,  I  think,  the  Humean  insight.  For,  it  is  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  Hume  that  this  discovery  of  instinct  and  of  life  is  first 
set  forth  with  full  awareness  of  its  importance  and  its  implications. 
The  necessities  of  life  are  here  seen  to  lie  deeper  and  to  be  more 
impelling  and  more  creative  than  any  idea;  it  is  idle  and  foolish  to 
ask  of  reason  and  intellect  that  they  shall  furnish  the  basis  and 
the  justification  of  life.  Life  needs  no  justification;  we  are  not  to 
say  of  reason  that  it  is  autonomous,  the  source  of  such  ideals  and 
values  as  it  may  be  willing  to  recognize.  The  "shining  of  the  Right 
by  its  own  unborrowed  radiance" — the  phrase  is  Howison's — be- 
comes meaningless.  In  Hume's  philosophy  is  embedded  practically 
the  whole  of  instrumentalism  and  of  modern  biological  naturalism, 
which  affirms  the  primacy  of  instinct,  and  denies  the  autonomy  of 
intellect.  It  is  wholly  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  Hume's  thought 
for  McDougall  to  write  thus:  "We  may  say,  then  that  directly  or 
indirectly  the  instincts  are  the  prime  movers  of  all  human  ac- 
tivity, .  .  .  take  away  these  instinctive  dispositions  with  their 
powerful  impulses,  and  the  organism  would  become  incapable  of 
activity  of  any  kind;  it  would  lie  inert  and  motionless  like  a  wonder- 
ful clockwork  whose  mainspring  had  been  removed  or  a  steam- 
engine  whose  fires  had  been  drawn."4 

We  have  already  dealt  with  some  aspects  of  this  difference 
between  the  Socratic  and  Humean  assumptions  as  to  the  office  of 
reason  in  discussing  and  in  defending  the  autonomy  of  certain 
values.  This  we  did  while  attempting  to  give  full  recognition  to  the 
undoubted  importance  which  feeling  and  instinctive,  natural  inter- 
ests have  in  our  value  consciousness.  And  we  desire  here  to  stress 
once  more  as  emphatically  as  may  be  the  way  in  which  religion 
roots  itself  in  impulse  and  in  vital  necessity,  and  the  way  in  which 
it  bodies  forth  certain  of  the  fundamental  and  instinctive  interests 
which  a  gregarious  animal  will  exhibit.  To  see  the  force  of  this,  let 
us  enter  into  and  accept  the  premises  of  a  thoroughgoing  biological 
and  voluntaristic  view  of  human  nature  and  of  the  engrossing 
human  concerns.  We  will  be  confronted  on  every  hand  by  vital 

4  "Social  Psychology,"  p.  44.  This  is  by  no  means  to  say  that  the  whole  of  this 
book  is  Humean,  in  its  discussion  of  the  relation  between  instinct  and  reason. 

1 230  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

interests,  each  one  of  which  has  arisen  because  it  was  a  way  of 
meeting  the  life  needs  of  some  specific  organism  in  the  presence  of 
some  specific  situation.  The  total  and  single  interest  of  the  organism 
to  maintain  its  existence,  its  elan  vital,  is  but  refracted  into  the 
various  specific  interests  which  reflect  the  different  circumstances 
and  needs  of  life.  "Religion  focuses  round  the  needs  and  circum- 
stances of  life.  Religion  is  indeed  but  a  representation,  an  emphasis 
of  those  needs  and  circumstances  collectively  and  repeatedly  felt." 
This — quoted  from  Miss  Harrison's  "Themis'7 — is  the  burden  of 
much  of  the  most  penetrating  psychological  analyses  of  religion 
which  we  owe  to  the  whole  modern  movement  inspired  by  biology 
and  by  the  social  and  historical  sense  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It 
may  well  be  that  religion  draws  upon  all  of  the  primary  human 
instincts,  that  it  echoes  in  massive,  if  vague,  form  the  ultimate  neces- 
sities of  the  human  organism  in  the  presence  of  the  world  which 
surrounds  him  and,  in  part  at  least,  sustains  him.  Or,  with  greater 
confidence  and  more  definiteness  we  may  link  religion  to  those 
fundamental  impulses  and  emotions  which  are  bound  up  with  the 
life  of  man  in  communities,  the  sensitiveness  of  the  individual  to 
social  stimuli,  and  his  felt  participation  in  the  life  of  the  group. 
But  it  does  not  make  very  much  difference,  for  the  present  argu- 
ment, which  instinctive  interest  or  which  group  of  life  activities  is 
regarded  as  furnishing  the  psychological  roots  of  religion.  That  it 
is  linked  to  some  basic  and  instinctive  interests,  just  as  love  is, 
indeed  just  as  life  as  a  whole  is,  determines  our  problem.  Now  with 
respect  to  instinct  and  all  that  springs  from  instinct,  certain  things 
are  to  be  noted.  First,  there  is  the  characteristic  so  strikingly  set 
forth  by  James  in  a  passage  from  which  I  shall  quote.  Each  instinct, 
it  is  pointed  out,  leads  to  emotions,  preferences,  and  ways  of  be- 
haviour which,  to  the  organism,  are  utterly  obvious  and  "matter  of 
course."  The  particular  way  of  responding  to  the  particular  stimulus 
which  happens  to  be  effective  is  wholly  self-evident  and  transparent, 
requiring  no  justification  whatever.  Such  an  instinctive  connection 
is,  for  the  organism  itself,  something,  says  James,  "absolute  and 
selbstverstandlich,  an  'a  priori  synthesis'  of  the  most  perfect  sort, 
needing  no  proof  but  its  own  evidence.  It  takes,  in  short,  what 
Berkeley  calls  a  mind  debauched  by  learning  to  carry  the  process 

[  231  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

of  making  the  natural  seem  strange,  so  far  as  to  ask  the  why  of  any 
instinctive  human  act.  .  .  .  Thus  we  may  be  sure  that,  however 
mysterious  some  animals'  instincts  may  appear  to  us,  our  instincts 
will  appear  no  less  mysterious  to  them.  And  we  may  conclude  that, 
to  the  animal  which  obeys  it,  every  impulse  and  every  step  of  every 
instinct  shines  with  its  own  sufficient  light,  and  seems  at  the  moment 
the  only  eternally  right  and  proper  thing  to  do."5  Further,  as  Mr. 
Trotter  has  pointed  out  with  clearness,  the  folkways,  the  idea 
systems,  the  preferences  and  loyalties  of  any  human  group  whatever 
come  also  to  possess  this  same  transparent  and  absolute  quality. 
"The  essential  specific  characteristic  of  the  mind  of  the  gregarious 
animal  is  this  very  capacity  to  confer  upon  herd  opinion  the  psy- 
chical energy  of  instinct."6  There  are,  in  such  instinctive  behavior, 
or  in  the  feelings  which  cluster  around  the  individual's  loyalty  to 
and  participation  in  the  group,  all  the  earmarks  of  absolutism. 
There  is  ever  implied,  if  not  avowed,  an  innocent  disclaimer  of  rela- 
tivity, and  of  the  possible  justification  of  other  folkways  and  other 
loyalties.  Observe,  now,  the  bearing  of  this  upon  the  concerns  of 
religion.  It  will  be  agreed  that  religion  has  to  do  primarily  with 
feeling,  or  that  it  is  the  spokesman  of  certain  instinctive  responses 
of  man  to  his  world,  for  instance  fear,  or  that,  in  the  words  of 
Durkheim,  it  is  "the  eminent  form  and,  as  it  were,  the  concen- 
trated expression  of  the  collective  life."  There  is  no  need  to  plead 
for  the  recognition  of  some  feeling  and  some  instinctive  interest 
which  enters  into  the  life  of  religion.  And  so  of  all  our  preferences, 
our  sentiments,  our  loyalties.  Somewhere  each  of  these  is  to  be 
traced  back  to  some  matter-of-fact  instinct.  But  there  is  surely 
something  disquieting  about  this  discovery  and  this  reflection.  The 
existence  and  the  intensity  of  any  feeling,  of  any  devotion,  and 
consequently  of  religion  proves  to  be  only  an  index  of  the  effective- 
ness of  certain  stimuli,  and  the  sensitiveness  of  the  individual  to 

5  "Psychology,"  vol.  2,  p.  387. 

6W.  Trotter:  "Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  War,"  p.  82.  Cf.  also  Veblen: 
"The  Nature  of  Peace,"  pp.  91  ff.  "Such  an  article  of  institutional  furniture  (as 
national  loyalty)  is  an  outcome  of  usage,  not  of  reflection  or  deliberate  choice;  and 
it  has  consequently  a  character  of  self-legitimation,  so  that  it  stands  in  the  accredited 
scheme  of  things  as  intrinsically  right  and  good,  and  not  merely  as  a  shrewdly  chosen 
expedient  ad  interim." 

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THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

them.  Such  feeling  furnishes  no  evidence  whatever  as  to  the  intrinsic 
worth  of  the  object  of  one's  feelings  and  of  one's  devotion.  Let  any 
normal  individual  attend,  say,  any  college;  let  him  absorb  such 
folkways  and  traditions  as  there  obtain,  and  feelings  of  loyalty  and 
devotion  which  are  called  college  spirit  arise  within  him.  And  this 
will  occur  wholly  regardless  of  the  real  merit  and  excellence  of  the 
particular  college  he  has  chosen.  His  feelings  will  be  a  function  of 
his  sensitiveness  to  social  stimuli;  they  do  not  at  all  measure  the 
worth  of  the  object  to  which  they  are,  seemingly,  directed.  Now 
the  basic  problem  about  religion  lies  just  here.  Are  there  any  rational 
loyalties?  There  are  plenty  of  instinctive  loyalties  generated  by 
instinct,  and  revealing  merely  the  effectiveness  of  certain  stimuli 
upon  the  individual's  mind.  But  are  the  total  feelings  and  loyalties 
which  attend  the  enterprise  of  life  as  a  whole,  and  which  surely 
are  the  psychological  roots  of  religion, — do  they  also  reveal  any 
object  which  is  able  not  only  to  cause  the  feelings  and  the  devotion, 
but  really  to  justify  them?  Does  a  man's  willingness  to  give  his  life 
for  his  country  measure  the  effectiveness  with  which  herd  opinion 
and  collective  emotions  impinge  upon  him,  or  does  it  measure  also 
the  inherent  worthiness  and  dignity  of  the  cause  to  which  he  devotes 
himself?  Unless  we  are  able  to  affirm,  at  least,  the  possibility  of  the 
latter,  I  can  see  nothing  but  despair  and  cynicism  for  us  as  we  face 
the  future.  Here  is  a  terrible  shortcoming  of  all  feeling,  instinct,  of 
every  matter-of-fact  interest,  of  every  devotion  which  is  merely  the 
inevitable  prolongation  of  forces  and  stimuli  from  below  and  not 
at  all  the  revelation  of  an  autonomous  good.  For,  in  spite  of  the 
apparent  self-evidence  and  transparency  of  instinct  of  which  James 
speaks,  we  know  how  specious  and  illusory  it  is.  It  is  utterly  irra- 
tional, mere  matter  of  fact,  contingent  and  particular.  Nothing 
objective  .or  universal,  nothing  possessing  inherent  worth  is  here 
disclosed.  To  leave  the  matter  thus  with  realism  and  with  naturalism, 
is  equivalent  to  shutting  out  from  our  life  every  breath  of  freedom 
and  of  reasonableness,  of  objectivity  and  of  reality.  Now,  paradoxi- 
cal as  it  may  sound,  religion,  however  deeply  it  is  rooted  in  the  life 
of  instinct  and  of  feeling,  witnesses  to  the  urgent  requirement  that 
our  loyalties  be  not  only  the  utterance  of  our  interests  and  our  in- 
stincts, but  also  the  disclosure  of  an  objective  order  which  is  the 

[  233  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

source  and  the  criterion  of  the  good.  Religion,  in  its  higher  historical 
forms,  expresses  the  conviction  that  there  are  rational  loyalties  and 
preferences.  By  "rational"  I  simply  mean  that  the  loyalty  is  not 
merely  generated  by  a  local  and  particular  interest  which  is  rooted 
in  instinct,  but  that  it  is  directed  toward  and  is  nourished  by  a 
Good  which  is  autonomous.  The  worth  of  our  striving  and  of  our 
interests  shall  be  measured  by  the  intrinsic  worth  of  that  ideal  which 
shines  wholly  in  its  own  light.  Its  worth  shall  not  be  measured  by 
our  instincts  and  our  interests.  No  one  can  reasonably  doubt,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  such  has  been  and  is,  the  deepest  and  most  uni- 
versal intent  of  the  religious  mind.  Through  the  vehicle  of  countless 
metaphor  and  legend  has  religion  expressed  man's  sense  that  he 
is  in  the  presence  of  ideals,  of  significant  structures  possessing 
autonomous  value,  which  are  pertinent  to  his  own  life  interests,  yet 
are  not  merely  the  shadowy  projections  of  his  own  wishes  nor  the 
fortuitous  outcome  of  the  precarious  congeries  of  vital  forces  and 
instincts  which  we  call  the  human  body.  Religion,  it  is  true,  does 
connote  a  kind  of  "absolutism,"  if  you  choose  to  use  the  term.  The 
object  of  one's  uttermost  fealty  is  not  wholly  relative  to  the  par- 
ticular interests  which  happen,  for  the  time  being,  to  be  grouped 
together  in  some  organism,  class  or  nation.  This  is,  one  may  say, 
"absolutism,"  but  so  is  any  conviction  that  there  are,  for  instance, 
beliefs  which  derive  their  validity  from  the  side  of  the  objective 
realities  they  envisage,  rather  than  from  the  instinctive  and  feeling 
propensities  with  which  they  may  be  congenial.  And  without  this 
conviction  there  is  no  knowledge,  no  science,  and  no  life  of  reason 
whatever. 

Here  then  are  two  needs  which  religion  or  something  akin  to 
religion,  may  fulfill.  The  needs  are  legitimate  and  persistent. 
Loyalty  and  devotion  to  any  cause  involve  feeling  and  emotion 
rather  than  idea  alone,  because  it  is  through  these  energies  of  the 
mind  which  have  their  roots  in  instinct  and  in  impulse  that  indi- 
vidual and  historical  structures  are  apprehended  and  participated  in. 
But  there  is  another  side  of  the  balance  sheet,  and  another  urgent 
requirement.  That  which  originates  in  feeling  and  instinct  is  bound, 
it  would  appear,  to  be  partial  and  limited,  an  expression  solely  of 
a  particular  and  exclusive  interest,  never  of  structures  and  values 

[  234  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

which  are  really  objective.  The  very  individuality  of  feeling,  and 
of  that  which  feeling  may  know,  implies  such  partiality  and  con- 
centration. But  we  seek,  at  the  very  least,  to  clothe  these  instinc- 
tive loyalties  in  the  garb  of  rationality,  to  pretend  that  they  are 
inspired  by  the  merit  inhering  in  the  object  rather  than  by  any 
interest  or  instinct  which  may  happen  to  be  ours.  This  tendency 
to  take  cover  under  the  language  of  reason,  to  act  and  speak  as  if 
the  intrinsic  value  of  some  object  generates  and  justifies  our  devo- 
tion rather  than  acknowledge  that  our  matter-of-fact  devotion, 
instinctive  or  conventional,  makes  the  object  worthful, — this  im- 
pulse is  deep-seated  and  far-reaching.  It  witnesses  to  the  actual 
need  that  we  should  discover  some  way  of  life,  some  organizing 
discipline,  which  issues  from  the  authentic  validity  of  an  objective 
structure  which  we  do  not  make  and  then  remake,  but  which  we 
know  and  in  whose  life  we  may  share.  Such  a  need  is  nothing  what- 
ever but  the  extension  to  all  our  life  and  our  loyalties,  of  that  which 
we  willingly  accord  to  the  interest  of  knowledge,  of  science,  and,  it 
may  be,  of  philosophy.  Once  the  possibility  of  any  truth  whatever 
be  granted — and  to  avow  anything  else  is  obviously  out  of  the 
question — the  range  of  the  mind's  contents  and  energies  which  do 
have  an  objective  reference,  which  participate  in  significant  struc- 
tures, is  likely  to  expand.  You  will,  only  with  difficulty,  draw  a  line 
between  the  mind's  recognition  of  truth  and  the  mind's  possession 
of  other  values. 

But,  having  considered  these  two  functions  which  fall  to  the  office 
of  religion,  we  are  at  once  confronted  with  the  query  as  to  whether 
these  two  needs  are  not  really  in  conflict  with  one  another.  Do  they 
not  veer  off  in  opposite  directions,  as  one  follows  them  along?  To 
urge  that  it  is  feeling,  or  something  not-idea,  something  which  lies 
close  to  the  instinctive  bias  of  impulse  or  of  tradition,  which  enables 
us  to  participate  in  the  life  of  communities  and  selves,  this  would 
seem  to  connote  anti-intellectualism  and  mysticism.  It  stresses  the 
wealth  and  concreteness  of  the  attitudes  of  love  and  loyalty,  and  it 
would  ascribe  to  such  interests  of  the  mind  a  genuinely  cognitive 
function.  But  the  other  motive  and  need  points  elsewhere,  in  the 
direction  of  a  Platonic  intellectualism;  it  distrusts,  certainly  for  all 
the  purposes  of  knowledge  and  possession,  everything  which  springs 

[  235  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

from  impulse  and  instinct,  from  the  basic  necessities  of  life  and 
of  action.  Now,  placing  these  two  functions  of  religion  thus  side  by 
side  merely  serves  to  bring  to  a  focus  what  is,  after  all,  the  central 
issue  and  the  deepest  problem  in  all  our  philosophy.  It  is  the  relation, 
once  more,  between  activity  and  possession,  behavior  and  knowl- 
edge. For  feeling  and  instinct,  representing  as  they  do  the  energies 
of  life  itself,  must  needs  select,  act,  and  seek  in  every  way  to  further 
the  interests  of  which  they  are  the  witness.  To  live  is  to  utilize  and 
to  control  the  world  in  which  one  lives.  But  what  of  knowledge,  of 
the  arts  of  sympathetic  apprehension,  of  love,  and  of  worship?  Are 
these  but  variations  upon  the  one  central  theme  of  creative  intel- 
ligence and  mastery?  Bring  together,  once  more  and  in  a  single 
perspective,  the  historical  forces  and  the  human  motives  which  press 
for  recognition  and  for  some  synthesis  of  their  conflicting  claims. 
Greek  philosophy,  the  genius  of  Christianity,  and  the  social  struc- 
ture of  medieval  feudalism,  each  in  a  different  way,  contain  the 
implications  of  a  common  idea.  That  was  the  idea  of  an  order 
of  reality,  a  significant  structure,  which  it  is  given  to  man  to 
apprehend,  to  conform  to,  and  to  participate  in.  His  vocation 
lies  in  the  more  and  more  complete  possession  of  that  order; 
it  is  wholly  prior  to  his  nature,  his  wants,  and  his  life.  Men  neither 
construct  nor  reconstruct  this  divine  texture,  these  Forms,  this 
order  of  society.  Everything  individual,  human,  natural,  is  de- 
fined in  terms  of  these  prior  structures.  It  is  from  this  root 
that  both  religion  and  idealism  emerge.  Here  there  is  opportunity 
for  contemplation  and  for  worship,  for  knowledge  and  for  partici- 
pation in  the  life  and  purposes  of  God.  This  is  the  one  outstanding 
and  overshadowing  motive  in  the  idea  systems  which  prevailed 
down  to  the  emergence  and  the  dominance  of  those  forces  which 
have  made  the  modern  world.  There  is  abundant  room  for  diversity 
and  richness  of  type  in  the  long  and  impressive  history  of  this 
master  motive.  And  there  was  always  present  in  these  various  idea 
systems  one  persistent  and  one  great  danger.  It  was  the  danger 
that,  since  one  started  not  from  human  needs  and  from  human 
nature,  but  from  significant  structures,  these  should  become  empty 
forms,  the  embodiment  of  interests  which  were  simply  not  pertinent 

[  236  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

to  the  life  of  man.7  The  time  comes  when  this  danger  proves  to  be 
fatal.  The  natural  energies  of  man,  his  human  interests  and  impulses 
find  release;  they  burst  forth  rebellious  against  the  claim  of  any 
significant  structures  which  are  simply  to  be  recognized  and  appre- 
hended. No  structure  possesses  meaning  or  value,  save  such  as  is 
the  embodiment  and  the  instrument  of  a  prior  interest.  We  are  in 
the  world  of  the  Renaissance,  of  nationalism,  and  of  individualism, 
a  world  exhibiting  the  release  of  desire  and  the  discovery  of  instinct. 
Not  possession  but  activity,  not  realism  but  nominalism,  not  ideal- 
ism but  naturalism,  not  traditionalism  but  economic  rationalism, 
not  absolutism  but  democracy  define  the  moving  forces  of  the  new 
age. 

When  we  allow  ourselves  steadily  to  discern  this  large  situation, 
when  we  see  how  significant  and  compelling  are  the  idea  systems 
which  spring  from  both  the  old  and  the  new,  I  see  but  one  direction 
in  which  to  look  for  a  reasonable  and  a  verifiable  hypothesis  which 
will  meet  our  requirements.  View  the  full  circle  of  the  mind's 
interests  and  experiences,  and  you  must  say  that  the  mind  points, 
as  it  were,  in  two  directions,  back  to  instinct,  impulse,  and  desire, 
and  forward  to  a  real  world  which  is  the  locus  of  enduring  signifi- 
cant structures  whose  apprehension  and  love  make  the  enterprise 
of  life  the  thing  that  it  is.  And  it  is  not  two  separate  and  irrelevant 
regions  with  which  we  are  dealing,  no  merely  blind,  insatiable 

7  "Both  Stoicism  and  Christianity  disapproved  of  slavery;  but  both  were  too 
careful  of  the  established  order,  and  the  real  effect  of  their  attitudes  was  to  keep  the 
old  institution  in  existence.  For  to  the  Stoic  the  law  of  nature  was  somewhat  aloof 
from  the  actual  arrangements  of  society.  Stoics  might  believe  and  even  act  as  though 
a  slave  were  a  human  being;  but  the  established  convention  had  also  to  be  main- 
tained. And  the  Christian  idealist  also  believed  all  men  equal  hi  the  eyes  of  God  and 
treated  slaves  as  brethren;  but  he  too  gave  his  influence  to  maintain  the  established 
institution,  for  the  laws  of  the  city  of  God  were  very  far  removed  from  any  real 
contact  with  the  order  of  the  state.  Thus  began  the  greatest  hindrance  to  political 
development,  the  divided  allegiance,  according  to  which  men  continue  to  maintain 
as  citizens  what  they  condemn  as  human  beings.  Caesar  being  given  one  sort  of 
service  and  God  another,  the  higher  your  enthusiasm  the  more  you  neglected  the 
actual  re-arrangement  of  human  relations.  The  temporal  was  reduced  to  dust  and 
ashes  by  taking  from  it  all  the  spirit  of  life,  and  the  spiritual  was  emptied  of  all 
content  by  being  removed  from  immediate  contact  with  the  world."  Burns:  "Political 
Ideals,"  p.  89. 

[    237    ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

Rousseauistic  impulse  arising  from  below,  and  a  mysterious  check 
from  above,  issuing  from  reason.  Let  one  keep  in  mind  a  palpable 
and  elementary  truth  regarding  the  function  of  consciousness  at 
that  level  where  it  appears  most  rudimentary  and  simple.  In  a  very 
literal  manner  we  have  said  that  the  function  of  sense  organs  points 
in  two  directions.  Sense  organs  are  pertinent  to  the  needs  and  the 
life-activity  of  the  organism;  and  they  disclose  significant  aspects 
of  the  environment.  Their  meaning  is  both  "internal"  and  "external." 
Sense  organs  are  called  into  being  by  the  vital  necessities  of  the 
organism,  and  are  thus  pragmatic  and  instrumental;  but  they  also 
reveal  that  which  is  external  and  real  and  their  function  here  can 
be  interpreted  only  in  terms  of  "realism."  But  neither  instrumen- 
talism  nor  realism,  taken  by  itself,  can  do  justice  to  this  two- 
fold relationship.  The  very  same  sensation  which  is  an  event  in  the 
life  history  of  the  organism  and  is  a  portion  of  its  behavior  just 
as  truly  as  is  its  breathing,  is  also  a  disclosure  of  the  real,  in  contact 
with  and  participant  in  an  objective  order.  And  what  is  so  manifest 
in  the  case  of  sensations  holds  true,  in  principle,  of  the  entire  life 
of  the  mind.  Ideas,  as  well  as  sensations,  are  the  instruments  of  life; 
they  are  events  in  the  behavior  of  selves,  but  they  are  cognitive 
as  well.  Ideas  stand  in  a  "between"  relation  with  reference  to  life's 
interests  on  the  one  side,  and  objective  structures  on  the  other  side. 
They  interpret  the  one  to  the  other;  they  are  the  pledge  of  the 
solidarity  and  continuity  of  life  and  knowledge,  activity  and 
possession,  instinct  and  reason.  Pragmatism  alone,  and  realism  alone, 
fail  to  do  justice  to  the  entire  nature  and  office  of  ideas.  An  idea 
may  be  pertinent  both  to  the  life  interests  which  are  concentrated 
within  a  body,  a  self,  a  community,  and  at  the  same  time  it  may 
participate  in  reality. 

Now  religion  may  be  viewed,  I  believe,  as  the  spokesman  of  this 
entire  situation  in  which  the  life  of  the  mind  points  backward  to  the 
vital  interests  of  selves  and  communities,  and  forward  to  imperish- 
able and  real  structures,  whose  apprehension  is  the  source  of  what- 
ever truth  and  significance  the  enterprise  of  life  and  of  reason  may 
achieve.  This  is  the  office  of  religion  in  principle  and  in  idea.  Such 
an  interpretation  does  justice  to  both  of  those  elements  within  the 
historic  life  of  religion  which  everywhere  meet  our  attention.  There 

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THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

is  in  religion  immediacy,  feeling,  the  urge  and  the  pressure  of  social 
experience  and  group  loyalty.  And  there  is,  too,  an  ineradicable 
metaphysical  motive,  a  conviction  of  the  reality  of  that  which  seems 
most  distant  from  the  immediacy  of  feeling,  a  belief  in  that  which 
belongs  to  another  order  and  another  world.  The  fusion  of  these  two 
elements  may  have  been  and  may  still  be  crude  and  unimaginative 
in  the  historical  religions.  Nevertheless  it  is  religion  which  has 
served  as  the  witness  and  the  pledge  of  this  most  deep-lying  and  per- 
vasive characteristic  of  all  our  experience.  Unless  the  mind  does 
point  backward  to  vital  interests,  and  forward  to  real  significant 
structures,  then  there  is  no  truth  for  man  which  is  relevant  to  his 
experience  and  to  the  requirements  of  his  life. 

What  I  urge  is,  in  substance  then,  that  religion  concentrates  in 
a  single  attitude  and  experience  those  two  motives  which  have 
seemed  to  so  many  to  be  utterly  incompatible  with  one  another, 
the  motives  of  possession  and  activity,  contemplation  and  control, 
idealism  and  democracy,  the  idea  systems  of  Platonism  and  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  moving  ideals  of  the  modern  age.  And  I  have  wished 
to  contend  that,  in  principle,  these  two  attitudes  are  not  necessarily 
antagonistic,  but  that  they  mutually  imply  and  reinforce  each  other, 
when  we  take  them  at  their  fullest  and  their  best.  This  they  may  do 
if  a  sensation  or  an  idea  may  be  viewed  as  facing  in  two  directions, 
interpreting  to  each  other  a  vital  interest  and  objective  fact.  It 
remains  to  consider,  in  greater  detail,  why  we  are  entitled  to  hold 
that  the  basic  attitudes  of  religion  and  of  democracy,  contemplation 
and  activity  are  not  incompatible  with  one  another.  The  belief  that 
they  are  irreconcilable  is  widespread.  And  since  idealism,  in  its  more 
radical  and  profound  form,  has  ever  been  the  spokesman  for  the 
religious  attitude,  the  rejection  of  religion  implies  also  the  rejection 
of  idealism.  The  following  passage  from  Perry  may  be  cited  as  a 
moderate  statement  of  the  position  here  in  question.  ".  .  .  Idealism 
is  not  at  heart  sympathetic  with  the  modern  democratic  conception 
of  civilization.  Idealism  is,  it  is  true,  an  idealizing  philosophy.  But 
the  ideal  which  this  philosophy  glorifies  is  not  the  gradual  ameliora- 
tion of  life  through  the  human  conquest  of  nature;  but  rather  the 
perfection  that  was  from  the  beginning  and  is  forever  more.  The 
faith  which  is  most  characteristic  of  today,  is  the  faith  in  what  an 

[  239  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

enlightened  and  solidified  mankind  may  achieve,  despite  the  real 
resistance  and  incompetence  which  retard  it.  The  faith  which  is 
most  characteristic  of  idealism,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  faith  that 
all  things  work  together  for  the  glory  of  an  eternal  spiritual  life, 
despite  appearances."8  Holding  to  this  conviction,  one  will  either 
renounce  interest  in  religion  altogether,  ignore  it  while  empha- 
sizing the  necessity  for  intelligent  control  and  mastery,  or  one  will 
interpret  religion — that  is,  such  religion  as  is  worthy  of  survival  in 
the  modern  age — as  a  doctrine  of  meliorism,  and  as,  in  substance, 
identical  with  the  interests  of  morality.  As  representing  the  former 
position,  Dewey  is  a  conspicuous  instance.  One  may  confidently 
say  that,  for  the  instrumentalism  of  Dewey,  there  simply  are  no 
problems  of  religion  and  of  the  religious  attitude  and  mind  which 
are  pertinent  to  our  world  and  its  interests.  Here  is  eloquent  if 
silent  testimony  to  the  conviction  that  religion  is  a  matter  of  con- 
templation and  of  worship,  of  the  mind's  apprehension  and  posses- 
sion of  something  perfected  and  significant.  As  such,  it  is  not  for  us. 
For  the  instrumentalist,  life  and  mind  are  centers  of  adaptive 
response,  surrounded  by  an  environment  to  be  mastered  and  used 
and  not  enjoyed  and  loved.  James,  on  the  other  hand,  did  concern 
himself  with  some  of  the  problems  of  religion.  But,  for  him,  the 
religion  which  is  best  suited  to  a  pluralistic  and  democratic  world 
is  melioristic  and  identical  with  the  moral  attitude  of  activity  and 
striving.  Any  attitude  of  possession  or  contemplation  bespeaks 
quiescence  and  a  world  in  which  nothing  more  remains  to  be  done. 
Our  world  calls  for  struggle  and  for  strife  in  order  that  it  may 
become  better.  Significance  shall  accrue  to  it  through  man's  activity. 
No  one  will  be  inclined  to  deny  the  compelling  force  of  such  con- 
siderations. They  are,  without  doubt,  valid  as  against  certain  forms 
which,  in  the  past  and  in  the  present,  the  religious  interests  of  men 
have  assumed.  Nor  is  it  at  all  difficult  to  point  out  certain  traits  of 
the  religious  attitude  which  appear  to  show  a  marked  contrast  with 
the  life  and  the  interests  of  morality.  For  the  religious  attitude,  so 
it  has  appeared  to  us  throughout,  is  one  of  the  apprehension  of  and 
the  participation  in  something  which  is  both  real  and  also  signifi- 
cant. Here  is,  we  have  urged,  something  non-pragmatic,  not  describ- 

8  Perry:  "Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,"  p.  188. 

[    240   ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

able  in  the  categories  of  behavior,  response  to  a  stimulus,  mastery 
and  use.  Idealism,  in  its  true  and  Platonic  sense,  is  the  utterance 
of  just  this  interest.  But  the  moral  order — how  commonly  has  it 
been  urged — is  a  world  of  selves,  individually  responsible,  denned 
not  in  terms  of  the  significant  structures  in  which  they  participate, 
and  which  are,  but  in  terms  of  their  fealty  to  ideals  which  ought  to 
exist.  And  whoever  tries  to  study  with  any  patience  and  sympathy 
the  life  of  religion  must  agree  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  sweep 
into  the  categories  of  moralism  those  traits  of  the  religious  attitude 
which  are  most  central  and  characteristic;  he  will  agree  that  religion 
possesses  a  certain  autonomy  of  its  own,  that  it  is  no  mere  reinforce- 
ment of  morality — as  Kant  supposed — any  more  than  it  is  a  bare 
affirmation  of  certain  supposed  truths,  and  all  of  this  should  now  be 
clear  to  us.  The  achievements  of  psychological,  historical,  and  social 
studies  can  no  longer  leave  us  content  with  Kant's  interpretation, 
say,  of  the  significance  of  the  concept  of  Grace,  and  the  experience 
which  has  gone  into  its  making.  We  know  how  much  has  gone  into 
the  making  of  any  individual  self,  how  much  is  literally  given  to 
him  by  nature  and  by  his  social  experience;  his  life  and  his  deeds 
are,  we  agree,  a  participation  in  and  an  enjoyment  of  some  commu- 
nity larger  than  himself.  But,  it  is  also  true,  as  a  plain  matter  of  his- 
torical fact,  that  this  participation  of  the  individual  in  structures 
and  in  energies  which  he  does  not  create,  instead  of  lessening  his 
capacity  for  moral  achievement  and  mastery,  steadies  it  and  enhances 
it.  He  who  has  not  discerned  the  way  in  which  possession  and  activ- 
ity, contemplation  and  mastery,  knowledge  and  will,  may  be  and 
are  fused  together  without  contradiction,  in  the  life  of  religion,  is 
blind  to  its  most  central  and  persistent  nature.  To  point  out  the 
antinomy  between  apprehension,  the  contemplation  of  a  significant 
structure,  and  the  purposive  striving  to  construct  something  satis- 
fying and  significant,  between  idealism  and  democracy,  is  certainly 
not  the  final  word.  The  world  of  selves  and  of  communities  is  too 
rich  and  too  complex  to  be  dealt  with  in  so  summary  and  easy  a 
fashion.  And  the  deeper  regions  of  those  energies  and  interests 
which  men  rightly  call  religious  are  given  over  neither  to  sheer 
quiescence,  nor  to  creative  adventure,  but  to  a  type  of  experience 
and  attitude  formed  by  the  mutual  interaction  and  interdependence 

[  241  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

of  these  two  seemingly  opposed  interests.  Nor  is  this  situation  one 
which  is  wholly  peculiar  to  religion  and  absent  altogether  from  other 
regions  of  experience  and  the  life  of  the  mind  at  large.  Indeed,  we 
may  best  hope  to  understand  the  solidarity  of  the  attitudes  of  activ- 
ity and  possession  in  the  life  of  religion  if  we  first  turn  to  some 
analogous  situations  elsewhere  in  which  such  a  fusion  may  be 
discerned.  The  larger  import  of  the  argument  here  should  not 
escape  us.  Religion  and  idealism  are  rooted  in  those  attitudes  and 
interests  which  are  involved  in  the  mind's  apprehension  and  posses- 
sion of  significant  structures.  The  formative  forces  of  the  modern 
world  have  fostered  the  attitudes  of  activity  and  control,  democracy 
and  individualism.  Our  argument  thus  far  has  been  concerned  with 
the  task  of  showing  that  the  motives  and  ideas  which  find  expression 
in  Platonism  and  in  idealism  have  an  undoubted  validity  in  respect 
to  the  problems  of  truth  and  value,  of  mind  and  of  the  self.  But  are 
these  idea  systems  consonant  with  the  ideals  and  attitudes,  the 
motives  and  experiences  of  democracy  and  of  the  modern  age?  At 
this  time  to  defend  idealism,  and  to  avow  an  interest  in  the  life  of 
religion,  is  this  to  be  utterly  reactionary,  to  be  blind  to  all  that  sepa- 
rates us  from  the  past,  and  to  betray  those  hopes  and  aspirations 
upon  which  the  future  depends?  In  seeking  an  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion, let  us  observe  the  way  in  which  some  of  the  major  interests 
and  provinces  of  experience  do  exhibit  an  interaction  and  fusion 
of  attitudes  which  are  analogous  with  those  of  possession  and  activ- 
ity, idealism  and  democracy,  religion  and  morality.  We  shall  be  inter- 
ested, then,  in  the  way  in  which  the  mind's  activity,  in  certain  impor- 
tant regions  at  least,  is  not  describable  as  a  sheer  adventure  in  the 
void,  but  is  intelligible  and  significant  because  it  implies  some 
previous  possession.  The  entire  process  is  one  which  exhibits  a 
mutual  interaction  or  alternation  between  creative  adventure  and 
cognitive  apprehension  and  contemplation.  The  enterprise  as  a  whole 
is  thus  "circular"  and  dialectic;  to  ignore  this  and  to  attempt  a 
description  of  consciousness  with,  say,  the  biological  categories  of 
behavior  alone,  is  to  ignore  one  of  the  deepest  aspects  of  the  entire 
life  of  mind. 

Consider,  then,  by  way  of  illustration,  the  relation  between  deduc- 
tion and  induction  in  the  acquisition  and  ordering  of  our  knowledge. 

[  242  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

What  we  are  fairly  entitled  here  to  say  is  this.  No  concrete  process 
of  knowledge  getting  is  ever  an  instance  either  of  pure  "deduction" 
or  of  pure  "induction."  It  is  the  possibility  of  pure  induction  which 
specially  interests  us  here.  For,  it  might  appear  as  if  induction  were 
really  an  instance  of  sheer  adventure,  as  if  one  were,  at  the  outset, 
in  possession  only  of  fragments  and  that  the  process  consisted  wholly 
of  the  building  up  of  these  fragments  into  something  like  a  total 
structure.  But  not  till  the  whole  is  thus  constructed,  not  till  the 
theory  is  formulated  and  the  law  ascertained  is  there  anything  for 
the  mind  to  possess  save  the  fragments  which  are  to  be  pieced 
together  and  reconstructed.  Here  would  appear  to  be  nothing  but 
a  process  which  goes  from  the  parts  to  the  whole,  a  process  exhibit- 
ing "creative  intelligence,"  an  experimental  attitude,  a  "world  in 
the  making,"  a  spirit  of  forward-looking  adventure.  No  place  here 
for  Platonic  contemplation,  for  the  mind's  possession  of  and  partici- 
pation in  a  significant  structure.  Any  such  structure  seems  but  the 
tentative  outcome  of  experimental  activity.  But,  if  anything  is 
certain  about  the  growth  of  knowledge  and  about  scientific  method, 
it  is  that  any  such  description  as  this  is  entirely  too  simple  and  one- 
sided. There  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  part  played  by  hypothesis  and 
postulate.  Every  observation  of  a  fact  implies  a  certain  principle 
of  selection  whereby  just  this  fact  is  attended  to.  That  principle  of 
selection  may  not  come  before  the  mind  as  an  explicit  hypothesis. 
It  will  have  its  roots  deep  within  those  interests  which  belong  to 
the  mind,  which  indeed  constitute  the  mind.  It  is  the  presence  of 
these  selective  interests  which  lead  both  to  the  mind's  looking  and 
to  the  asking  of  questions.  And  nature  answers  no  questions  till  we 
ask  her.  Facts  are,  then,  observed  and  attended  to  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  fulfill  some  want,  verify  some  hypothesis,  answer  some 
question.  The  process  of  going  from  fact  to  fact,  the  activity  of 
induction  and  construction  is  embedded  within  a  structure  the 
apprehension  and  possession  of  which  makes  the  quest  and  the 
activity  meaningful.  The  creative  process  describes  only  that  which 
is  taking  place  at  the  "focus"  of  some  total  situation  in  which  there 
is  a  "fringe"  as  well.  The  further  out  toward  the  fringe  one  goes 
from  the  focus,  the  more  is  the  attitude  of  creative  adventure 
replaced  by  the  attitude  of  apprehension  and  sure  possession.  That 

[  243  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

the  process  in  its  entirety  is  not  simply  one  of  experimentalism, 
where  everything  is  tentative  because  everything  waits  upon  the 
success  or  failure  of  our  constructions,  is  made  clear  by  another  con- 
sideration. Besides  the  process  of  induction  there  is  the  inductive 
principle  itself.  It  is  the  inductive  principle  alone  that,  as  Russell 
puts  it,  "can  justify  any  inference  from  what  has  been  examined 
to  what  has  not  been  examined,"  and  moreover,  "we  can  never  use 
experience  to  prove  the  inductive  principle  without  begging  the 
question."9  The  inductive  principle  is  that  whose  possession  makes 
the  activity  of  induction  itself  significant  and  we  must  say  not  only 
that  the  constructive  activity  is  surrounded  by  a  more  total  struc- 
ture which  is  an  object  of  possession,  but  also  that  such  an  "whole- 
idea"  (the  term  is  Hocking's),  such  a  significant  system,  becomes 
pertinent  to  our  experience,  becomes  articulate  and  concrete  only  as 
it  is  used  to  make  our  active  and  constructive  enterprises  significant. 
The  continuity  and  mutual  solidarity  of  focus  and  fringe,  will  and 
knowledge,  instinct  and  idea  means  just  this.  The  total  process  and 
interest  is  neither  pure  or  impassive  contemplation,  nor  one  of  sheer 
adventure  and  activity.  Those  philosophers  who  have  envisaged  the 
deeper  nature  of  this  situation  have  spoken  of  it  as  a  "dialectic,"  a 
conversation,  a  matter  of  mutual  enrichment  with  reference  to  the 
mind's  prior  possessions  and  its  temporal  constructions.  The  deeply 
human  and  normal  nature  of  such  dialectic  so  often  has  escaped 
the  critic.  The  dialectic  of  Plato  and  of  Hegel  may  appear  a  mere 
matter  of  words  and  of  verbal  gymnastics.  This  is  not  wholly  lacking 
in  either.  But  the  dialectic  is  primarily  an  utterance  and  an  inter- 
pretation of  the  life  of  the  mind,  and  of  the  deepest  trait  of  our 
experience.  A  paragraph  from  Nettleship,  setting  forth  the  nature 
of  the  Platonic  dialectic,  is  worth  quoting  in  this  connection.  "The 
logical  method  of  the  'Republic'  is  in  accordance  with  the  form 
of  conversational  discussion.  Plato  does  not  start  by  collecting  all 
the  facts  he  can,  trying  afterwards  to  infer  a  principle  from  them; 
the  book  is  full  of  facts,  but  they  are  all  arranged  to  illustrate  prin- 
ciples which  he  has  in  mind  from  the  beginning.  Nor  does  he  set 
out  by  stating  a  principle  and  then  asking  what  consequences 
follow  from  it.  Starting  with  a  certain  conception  of  what  man  is, 

9  Russell:  "The  Problems  of  Philosophy,"  p.  106. 

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THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

he  builds  up  a  picture  of  what  human  life  might  be,  and  in  this  he 
is  guided  throughout  by  principles  which  he  does  not  enunciate  till 
he  has  gone  on  some  way.  He  begins  the  construction  of  his  picture 
with  admitted  facts  about  human  life,  and  he  gradually  adds 
further  elements  in  human  life;  he  at  once  appeals  to  and  criticizes 
popular  ideas,  as  he  goes  on,  extracting  the  truth  and  rejecting  the 
falsehood  in  them.  Thus  neither  'induction'  nor  'deduction'  is  a 
term  that  applies  to  his  method;  it  is  a  'genetic'  or  'constructive' 
method;  the  formation  of  his  principle  and  the  application  of  it  are 
going  on  side  by  side."10  This  mutual  playing  back  and  forth  between 
a  total  structure  and  a  specific  item,  enriching  the  former  and  inter- 
preting the  latter,  significantly  responding  to  the  stimulus  of  a  fact 
because  one  apprehends  a  total  meaning  as  an  object,  this  is  a  matter 
of  psychology  as  well  as  of  logic  and  scientific  method.  Any  new 
fact  which  may  be  perceived,  every  fresh  item  of  experience  as  it 
comes  to  us,  is  taken  up  and  knit  into  some  already  existing  struc- 
ture, some  apperception  mass,  interest,  hypothesis,  or  "whole-idea." 
And  this  process  of  assimilation  is  a  circular  process,  in  which  both 
preexisting  mental  structure  and  the  new  experience  react  upon 
each  other.  Each  is  the  interpreter  of  the  other.  Here  is  both  deduc- 
tion and  induction,  possession  of  a  significant  structure  and  creative 
activity,  contemplation  and  behavior.  An  analysis  of  any  significant 
human  experience  provides  us  with  the  essential  concepts  wherewith 
to  understand  how  it  is  that  Platonism  and  democracy,  religion  and 
creative  intelligence,  so  far  from  being  mutually  repellent,  may 
reinforce  and  supplement  each  other.  That  these  two  mental  atti- 
tudes and  energies  are  implicated  together  in  the  life  of  conscious- 
ness as  it  is  concretely  lived  is  the  clear  import  of  the  chapter  on 
Reasoning  in  James'  "Psychology,"  and  it  has  been  more  definitely 
set  forth  since  then  by  many  others.11  Hocking  has  given  an  illu- 
minating account  of  the  intricate  nexus  which  binds  deduction  and 
induction  together  into  a  single  complex  process.  This  process  is 
one  which  he  brings  under  the  rubric  of  the  "Principle  of  Alter- 
nation," and  it  is  this  principle  which  is  chiefly  to  aid  us  in  inter- 
preting religion  at  large  and  that  more  concentrated  expression  of 

10  Nettleship :  "Lectures  on  the  Republic  of  Plato,"  p.  10. 

11  Notably  by  Angell,  "Psychology,"  pp.  242  ff. 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

religion  which  is  mysticism.  "Effortless  appreciation"  of  something 
complete  and  significant,  this  is  what  worship  and  the  love  of  God 
are,  in  their  psychological  meaning.  Every  conscious  event,  every 
particular  response  to  a  stimulus,  every  specific  practicality  does, 
in  truth,  lie  embedded  within  some  larger  structure,  some  apper- 
ception mass,  some  "whole-idea."  Induction,  pragmatic  behavior, 
intelligent  control,  empiricism,  and  nominalism  do  not  tell  the  whole 
story.  The  interest  of  religion,  worship  if  you  choose,  is,  in  Hock- 
ing's  words,  "nothing  more  than  doing  with  the  whole  self,  and 
consciously,  that  which  in  blinder  and  more  fragmentary  fashion, 
we  are  doing  at  every  moment  of  our  waking  lives."12 

Thus,  the  relation  between  induction  and  deduction,  when  we  see 
its  import,  connotes  what  may  be  the  possible  relation  between  all 
of  the  manifold  interests  which  are  engendered  by  democracy  and 
modernity,  and  those  attitudes  and  interests  which  earlier  took  shape 
in  the  form  of  religion  and  idealism.  "Every  induction  is  induced 
by  a  prior  induction,  ultimately  by  a  total  induction,  or  judgment 
about  the  whole  of  things, — none  other  than  my  whole-idea,  derived 
from  whatever  knowledge  of  the  whole  and  of  God  my  experience 
has  built  up  for  me.  Every  induction  is  at  the  same  time  a  deduction, 
then, — an  'It  must  be  so/  parented,  though  from  the  background 
of  consciousness,  by  an  insight  which  in  its  origins  is  religious."13 

We  may  briefly  note  the  presence  of  another  situation  analogous  to 
that  which  we  have  been  describing  in  the  province  of  man's  moral 
and  political  activity.  It  comes  to  light  as  a  difficulty  which  inheres 
in  the  attempt  to  view  the  state,  say,  as  the  outcome  of  creative 

12  Hocking:  "The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,"  p.  422. 

13  Ibid.,  p.  477.  Hocking  has  also  touched  upon  the  relation  between  deduction  and 
induction  in  his  paper  on  "The  Holt-Freudian  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of  Royce"  in  the 
Philosophical  Review  for  May,  1916.  Cf.  also  the  following  paragraph  from  Bradley: 
"Essays  on  Truth  and  Reality,"  p.  16.  "The  want  of  an  object,  and,  still  more,  the 
search  for  an  object,  imply  in  a  certain  sense,  the  knowledge  of  that  object.  If  a  man 
supposed  that  he  never  could  tell  when  possession  is  or  is  not  gained,  he  surely  never 
would  pursue.  In  and  by  the  pursuit  he  commits  himself  to  the  opposite  assumption, 
and  that  assumption  must  rest  on  a  possession  which  to  some  extent  and  in  some 
sense  is  there."  There  are  some  observations,  acute  as  usual,  concerning  the  mutual 
reciprocity  of  induction  and  deduction,  activity  and  possession  made  by  Simmel: 
"Die  Probleme  der  Geschichtsphilosophie,"  pp.  20  ff. 

[  246  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

activity  on  the  part  of  free  individuals  who  wish  to  possess  only 
such  structures  as  they  themselves  have  constructed.  The  social 
contract  theory  issues  from  such  an  idea  system.  That  theory  gives 
expression  to  the  radical  democratic — and  modern — attitude  accord- 
ing to  which  all  worthy  structures,  fit  for  human  habitation  and 
possession,  must  be  the  outcome  of  man's  own  creative  activity. 
The  established  political  order,  the  structure  of  the  state  will  be 
viewed  as  the  outcome  of  men's  deeds  whereby  they  freely  con- 
tracted with  one  another  and  built  up  an  order  which  previously 
did  not  exist.  But  there  is  here  an  anomaly  and  a  difficulty.  For,  in 
a  "state  of  nature,"  where  no  political  and  moral  structures  are  as 
yet  possessed,  no  laws  are  binding,  and  no  contract  which  is  made 
where  there  is  no  such  possession  has  any  meaning  or  any  binding 
force.  A  contract  is  a  promise,  but  a  promise  has  meaning  only  for 
one  who  already  exists  within  a  moral  order.  He  who  makes  a 
promise  must  participate,  prior  to  the  making  of  the  promise,  in 
a  system  of  laws  and  obligations.  That  system  cannot  be  the  product 
of  any  activity  of  promise  making.  And  so  with  a  contract.  Two 
individuals  may  now  make  a  contract  because  they  both  exist  within 
a  system  which  is  prior  to  their  activity  as  makers  of  contracts. 
That  system  is  not,  in  its  entirety,  the  residue  of  men's  activity  and 
creativity.  The  activity  goes  on  within  a  structure  which  makes  the 
activity  possible  and  significant.  So  much  at  least  constitutes  the 
indispensable  minimum  of  what  philosophers  have,  at  times,  de- 
clared to  be  the  a  priori  nature  of  morality.  It  is  a  way — often  a 
very  formal  way — of  saying  that  creative  intelligence  and  activity 
occur  at  a  "focus"  surrounded  by  a  larger  "fringe"  which  is  pos- 
sessed and  whose  apprehension,  explicit  or  not,  makes  the  con- 
structive activity  possible.14 

14  There  is  an  interesting  passage  in  Shaftesbury  bearing  directly  upon  the  argu- 
ment. "  Tis  ridiculous  to  say  there  is  any  obligation  on  man  to  act  sociably  or 
honestly  in  a  formed  government,  and  not  in  that  which  is  commonly  called  the 
state  of  nature.  For,  to  speak  in  the  fashionable  language  of  our  modern  philosophy: 
'Society  being  founded  on  a  compact,  the  surrender  made  of  every  man's  private 
unlimited  right,  into  the  hands  of  the  majority,  or  such  as  the  majority  should 
appoint,  was  of  free  choice,  and  by  a  promise.'  Now  the  promise  itself  was  made 
in  the  state  of  nature;  and  that  which  could  make  a  promise  obligatory  in  the  state 
of  nature,  must  make  all  other  acts  of  humanity  as  much  our  real  duty  and  natural 

[  247  ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

We  have  been  citing  illustrations  of  the  undoubted  coexistence  and 
mutual  reinforcement  of  the  two  attitudes  of  creative  activity  and 
contemplative  possession.  Now  the  existence  of  this  situation  else- 
where, as  a  normal  if  profound  characteristic  of  our  human  expe- 
rience, prepares  us  to  understand  what  is  an  indubitable  if  paradoxi- 
cal characteristic  of  the  life  of  religion.  To  the  sober-minded  critic, 
zealous  to  defend  the  requirements  of  the  moral  consciousness,  the  at- 
titude of  possession  and  contemplation  has  often  appeared  antago- 
nistic to  the  attitude  and  the  implications  of  morality.  What  place 
has  any  Platonic  or  religious  apprehension  of  significant  structures, 
already  complete  and  worthy  of  man's  contemplation,  in  a  world 
which  bids  us  toil  and  create,  looking  only  to  that  which  ought  to 
be  but  now  is  not?  In  so  far  as  religion  stresses  any  other  interest 
than  that  of  moral  activity,  does  it  not  imply  and  justify  a  "moral 
holiday"  which,  if  taken  seriously,  means  the  death  of  morals?  How 
familiar  is  this  judgment,  and  how  urgently  is  it  stressed,  nowhere 
with  more  compelling  vigor  than  in  the  polemic  of  James.  But  the 
very  position  against  which  James  hurls  the  attitudes  of  meliorism 
and  activism  is  one  which  makes  the  same  assumption  made  by 
James  himself.  The  quiescence  and  indifferentism  of  the  mystic  and 
the  absolutist  arise  from  the  conviction  that  the  life  of  possession 
and  contemplation  excludes,  perforce,  all  moral  striving  and  all  dis- 
criminating loyalties.  This  belief  in  the  essential  antagonism  of 
knowledge  and  activity,  thought  and  life,  is  the  common  property 
of  both  James  and  the  "tender-minded,"  contemplative  intellect- 
ualist  whom  he  pursues  with  such  zest  and  relish.  No  doubt  the 
history  of  religion  and  of  life  provides  ample  evidence  for  such  a 
belief.  But  need  it  be  so,  and  is  it,  in  fact,  the  final  word?  That  it 

part.  Thus  faith,  justice,  honesty,  and  virtue,  must  have  been  as  early  as  the  state 
of  nature,  or  they  could  never  have  been  at  all.  The  civil  union,  or  confederacy, 
could  never  make  right  or  wrong,  if  they  subsisted  not  before.  He  who  was  free  to 
any  villainy  before  his  contract,  will  and  ought  to  make  as  free  with  his  contract 
when  he  thinks  fit.  The  natural  knave  has  the  same  reason  to  be  a  civil  one,  and 
may  dispense  with  his  politic  capacity  as  oft  as  he  sees  occasion.  Tis  only  his  word 
stands  in  his  way.  A  man  is  obliged  to  keep  his  word.  Why?  Because  he  has  given 
his  word  to  keep  it.  Is  not  this  a  notable  account  of  the  original  of  moral  justice,  and 
the  rise  of  civil  government  and  allegiance !"  "Freedom  of  Wit  and  Humour,"  Part  3, 
Section  i. 

[  248  ] 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  RELIGION 

may  be  otherwise,  that  activity  is,  in  certain  normal  and  familiar 
regions,  embedded  within  a  total  structure  which  surrounds  and 
sustains  it,  and  which  may  be  possessed  all  the  while  that  the  activity 
is  going  on,  so  much  we  have  tried  to  make  plain.  And  just  this,  we 
now  urge,  is  the  deepest  lesson  of  the  life  of  religion  itself.  It  simply 
is  not  true  to  say  that  here  exists  an  inevitable  clash  of  attitudes. 
Who  sees  nothing  but  this  is  blind  to  all  that  is  profound  within  the 
higher,  historical  religions.  James,  when  he  leaves  his  pragmatism 
and  enters  into  an  analysis  of  saintliness  and  goodness  is  by  no 
means  thus  blinded.  Either  a  unique  blending  of  these  two  interests, 
or  something  akin  to  an  alternation — vide  Hocking — back  and  forth 
from  possession  to  activity  and  then  again  to  apprehension  and 
worship,  this  is  the  normal  occurrence  in  religion.  Yet  it  is  suffi- 
ciently profound  to  be  called  a  mystery,  and,  with  a  recent  writer  we 
may  say  that  "one  of  the  chief  mysteries  in  religion  is,  in  fact,  the 
mystery  that  moral  zeal  does  coexist  with,  nay  feeds  upon,  the  con- 
viction of  that  perfection  of  the  world  which  makes  us  see  in  it  a 
revelation  of  God."15  We  content  ourselves  here  with  observing  this 
as  an  indubitable  fact,  appearing  over  and  over  in  the  lives  of 
countless  individuals  as  well  as  in  the  manner  in  which  religious 
idea  systems  have  entered  into  the  life  of  men.  Mystery  and  paradox 
that  such  should  be  the  case,  if  you  choose,  but  equally  so  will  be 
the  coexistence  of  deduction  and  induction,  of  that  apprehension 
of  inclusive  structures  which  makes  creative  activity  and  experi- 
mentation possible  and  significant.  There  are  queries  and  problems 
enough  here  as  to  detail.  At  least  the  possibility  is  assured  that  all 
the  manifold  energies  and  ideals  of  the  modern  age,  democracy, 
individualism,  intelligent  control,  and  creative  intelligence  might 
coexist  with  religion  and  idealism,  with  the  sure  possession  of 
objective,  significant  structures.  Let  us  admit  that  "what  serious 

15  Hoernle :  "The  Religious  Aspect  of  Bertrand  Russell's  Philosophy,"  Harvard  Theo- 
logical Review,  vol.  9,  p.  181.  Cf.  also  the  following  from  P.  Gardner:  "And  it  is  one 
of  the  great  practical  paradoxes  of  life  that  the  human  personality  which  is  most 
constantly  in  quiet  and  patient  communion  with  the  divine  does  not  thereby  become 
poor  and  colorless,  does  not  sink  into  a  mere  vehicle  of  an  external  power,  but  develops 
more  remarkably  on  its  own  lines,  gradually  growing  nearer  to  the  height  of  that  side 
of  divine  power  and  wisdom  with  which  it  has  affinity."  "The  Sub-conscious  and  the 
Super-conscious,"  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  9,  p.  489. 

[   249   ] 


IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

minded  men  most  want  to  know  is  what  modifications  and  abandon- 
ments of  intellectual  inheritance  are  required  by  the  newer  indus- 
trial, political  and  scientific  movements.  They  want  to  know  what 
these  newer  movements  mean  when  translated  into  general  ideas."16 
The  modern  man  wishes,  then,  a  philosophy,  an  education,  and  a 
political  order  consonant  with  realistic  science,  machine  industry 
and  radical  democracy.  Nevertheless,  the  modern  man  seeks  to 
make  his  own  world,  not  passively  and  piously  to  accept  and 
acquiesce  in  whatever  he  chances  to  find.  He  is  dissatisfied  with  all 
that  is  merely  given  to  him  from  without,  with  everything  tradi- 
tional and  static,  authoritative  and  supernatural.  Well  and  good, — 
but  why  accept,  then,  as  the  final  standards  and  sources  of  our 
philosophy  and  our  imagination,  those  particular  forces  and  struc- 
tures which  have  found  lodgment  in  modern  life?  Why  say,  with 
Dewey,  that  our  entire  philosophy  and  eduction  "must  effect  the 
transfiguration  of  the  mechanics  of  modern  life  into  sentiment  and 
imagination,"  if,  at  the  very  center  of  modern  life  is  the  interest  and 
demand  that  we  accept  nothing  and  make  everything?  No,  these 
modern  structures  themselves  need  scrutiny  and  appraisement,  in 
the  light  of  ideals  and  values  which  are  autonomous.  And  this  entire 
modern  ideal  and  attitude  of  activity,  control,  and  democracy,  just 
as  every  pulse  of  conscious  activity  and  will,  presupposes  an  out- 
lying significant  structure  which  may  be  possessed  and  apprehended. 
At  the  heart  of  our  modern  ideals,  awaiting  clarification  and  articu- 
lation, is  something  in  addition  to  creative  intelligence,  something 
akin  to  participation  in  what  Plato  envisaged  as  the  idea  of 
the  Good,  and  what  Christianity  apprehended  as  the  universal 
historical  community. 

16  Dewey :  "Creative  Intelligence,"  p.  5. 


[  250  ] 


INDEX 


Acton,  Lord,  213 

Adam,  J.,  61 

Animism,  45 

Anselm,  120 

Appropriation,  and  activity,  212  ff. 

Aristotle,  8,  70  ff. 

Augustine,  225 

Avenarius,  171,  189 

B 

Bacon,  100 

Balfour,  108,  182 

Barres,  19 

Benn,  193 

Bentham,  20 

Bergson,  132,  171 

Berkeley,  116,  123,  176,  204  ff. 

Bradley,  A.  C.,  153,  172, 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  246 

Burnet,  67 

Burns,  2,  9,  237 


Calkins,  201 

Calvin,  32 

Carlyle,  A.  J.,  8,  18 

Carlyle,  Thos.,  52 

Christianity,  8,  77  ff. 

Contemplation,  8,  55,  66  ff.,  86,  148 

Cornford,  53,  61 


Darwin,  106,  180 

Defoe,  31 

Democracy,  17,  22  ff.,  62,  96,  166 

Democritus,  67 

Descartes,  116,  121  ff. 


Dewey,  41,   79,  87,   117,   135,   157,   178, 

193,  239,  250 
Dilthey,  208,  226 
Division  of  Labor,  30 
Durkheim,  15,  47,  50,  54,  61 


Economic  Rationalism,  25,  31  ff. 
End-Term  theory  of  mind,  118 


Farnell,  60 

Feeling,  33,  82,  126,  157  ff.,  226  ff. 

Fichte,  1 66 

Finnbogason,  193 

Fisher,  84 

Frazer,  62,  217 

French  Revolution,  7 


Galileo,  95 

Gardner,  79,  217,  249 
Gierke,  17,  78 
Good,  143  ff.,  165 
Green,  151,  172,  219 
Gummere,  17 
Guyan,  40 

H 

Haldane,  98 

Harrison,  46,  49,  52,  55,  105,  231 
Hayes,  7 
Hegel,  119 
Henderson,  98 
Hildenbrand,  77 
Hobhouse,  23 
Hobbes,  143 
Hobson,  25,  27 
Hocking,  15,  52,  182,  245 


INDEX 


Hoernle,  249 

Holt,  96 

Howison,  230 

Hume,  112,  130,  155,  190,  201,  204,  230 

Husserl,  127 

I 

Idea  system,  i  ff. 
Idea,  66,  92  ff.,  115,  227 
Imitation,  68 
Immediacy,  125,  204 
Individual,  82  ff.,  192,  226 
Individualism,  7,  35,  194 
Induction,  242 
Instinct,  231  ff. 
Intentional  Acts,  i26ff. 
Invention,  21 

J 

James,  108,  122,  134,  187,  199,  207,  217, 
227,  231,  240,  248 


Kant,  148,  162,  223 
Knowledge,  Problem  of,  93 


Laberthonniere,  150 
Lauba,  39,  63 
Levy-Bruhl,  54,  178 
Lippman,  29 
Locke,  131 
Loeb,  170 

Love,  Platonic  doctrine  of, 
and  Desire,  179 


72,  80 


M 

Maeterlinck,  135 
Magic,  6 

and  religion,  62,  84 
Maine,  Sir  Henry,  108,  213 
Marett,  47,  49,  62,  84,  185 
Martineau,  75 
McDougall,  102,  no,  154, 
M'Gilvary,  107 
Meaning,  186  ff.,  216 


217 
182,  191,  230 


Medieval,  8,  18,  28 

Messer,  130 

Mind  and  Body,  136,  186  ff. 

Mitchell,  109 

Moore,  143,  159 

Muller,  50 

Murray,  39 

Mystery  God,  56  ff. 


N 


Natorp,  74 
Naturalism,  132  ff. 
Nettleship,  244 


Odyssey,  66 
Oesterreich,  129,  201 
Olympian  Gods,  55  ff. 


Participation,  17,  59,  68 

Perry,  24,  122,  128,  145 

Personal  Relations,  28  ff. 

Personality,  77  ff. 

Petzoldt,  95 

Pfander,  130,  150 

Plato,  8,  65  ff.,  163  ff. 

Pleasure,  i5off. 

Production,  25 

Progress,  174 

Projection,  Theories  of,  45,  76 

Protestant  Ethics,  32 


Ranke,  174 

Rashdall,  129,  146,  148 
Reflex  arc,  101  ff. 
Religion,  14  ff.,  39 

and  knowledge,  42,  238  ff. 

and  social  experience,  52 

and  magic,  62,  184 

and  feeling,  228  ff. 

and  morality,  240  ff. 
Renaissance,  6 
Renan,  134,  183 


INDEX 


Richard,  180 

Rickert,  84 

Rights,  20,  30 

Romanticism,  36,  85 

Rousseau,  113 

Royce,  17,  47,  48,  82,  136,  164,  190 

Russell,  36,  146,  159,  244 


Santayana,  41,  68,  87,  105,  225 

Scepticism,  99 

Scheler,  81,  132,  146,  150,  181,  209 

Schopenhauer,  148 

Science,  7,  94,  160 

Self,  198  ff. 

Sellars,  no 

Sentiment,  206 

Shaftesbury,  247 

Shand,  206 

Shotwell,  15,  22 

Sidgwick,  147 

Simmel,  29,  31,  34,  35,  172,  194,  246 

Smith,  N.  K.,  85,  no,  171 

Smith,  W.  R.,  49,  50 

St.  Thomas,  8 

Social  experience,  i77ff. 

Social  psychology,  2 

Sombart,  26 

Spinoza,  122,  133,  148 


Stimulus,   and   object,    109,   154,   173  ff., 

i86ff. 

Stoicism,  8,  143 
Stout,  127,  181,  187,  206 
Subjectivism,  26,  109,  116,  190 
Sumner,  108,  208 


Teichmiiller,  78 

Time,  173,  209 

Totemism,  76 

Toy,  79 

Tragedy,  172 

Trevelyan,  3 

Troeltsch,  9,  18,  19,  28,  32,  213 

Trotter,  232 

V 

Values,  107,  142  ff.,  153  ff. 
Veblen,  18,  28,  132,  134,  232 

W 

Ward,  55 

Webb,  39,  72,  78,  83,  120,  131,  176 

Weber,  32,  33 

Werner,  71 

Windelband,  70,  162,  194 

Woodbridge,  93,  98,  118 


Zeller,  67 


[  253  ] 


LOAN  DEPT. 


LD2lA-50m-9'58 
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YC  31419 


*  M857I9 


•    ..   As 

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